The Legion of the Central Intelligence Agency
by shaman3
Summary: Clark Kent is a normal guy. When Chuck Taine challenges him, Clark tries to prove himself, but he quickly finds himself in the CIA headquarters with Brainy cutting off binds on his wrists. What's going on? Clark/Brainy. AU.
1. Pilot

Ignore this

_Triangle-left-square-R2-swing--dang, missed him!_

Clark's face seemed to glow with bioluminescence. The same glow, it looked like, that illuminated Chuck's face. If it weren't for their fingers mashing buttons and the television screen in front of them, it would have seemed like they were fireflies. Salu's eyes followed the miniature characters kicking and lunging at each other. Salu had her hands on the couch Clark and Chuck were sitting on, but she was standing up behind them. Her head barely reached the tops of Clark's and Chuck's heads, even though they were sitting down. Every time they saw her, Chuck and Clark swore she was getting smaller. They called her Shrinking Violet.

"Gotcha!" Chuck blurted. Clark's character's health bar depleted after Chuck threw a solar blast at his face. Clark hung his head as the "Player 1 wins!" text hopped around on the screen joyfully as if _it_ had just won.

The desk bell rang and Salu muttered, "Dang!" and left. She went back out to the front of the store while Chuck and Clark stayed in the back, exhausted from their virtual battle.

"Hey, Clark," Chuck said laughing, "I owned you this time, yeah?"

Clark rolled his eyes and laughed. Chuck had no mercy. "You cheated. You keep using that fighter with the high jumps."

"That's why they call me Bouncy!" Chuck boasted. He sat up. "Listen up, Clarko. You're just too soft. Remember I told you I could hack into any site and not get caught?"

"Yeah?"

"And you backed down when I told you to do the same?"

"Well, I'm not that—"

"You're a sissy, Clark, that's what you are."

Clark's face grew red. "I am not!"

"Are too. I bet you can't even hack into a second-rate packaging company's site." Chuck teased dangerously. "Clark's a _baaaby..."_

Before Clark could retort, Salu's head popped in the room. "Hey, bozos, we need you up front. Come on."

--

Clark entered his empty apartment and collapsed onto his bed. Normally he would've dozed off, but Chuck's nag kept coming repeating in his head.

_You're a sissy, Clark, that's what you are_.

Clark screwed up his face and pushed off the bed. It was easy, considering he had absolutely no muscle at all. Clark plopped himself on the computer seat and opened up his internet server.

Chuck had instructed Clark how to hack into a site once before. Clark tried to regain his memories while searching for a target to attack.

_You backed down._

A military site. That would be good enough for Chuck. All he had to do was put a simple code into his Action Replay-looking thing and bingo, job done. Clark wouldn't get teased anymore, and life would go on.

Clark opened up the page for the Marines. He had to admit even with all the adrenaline Clark had built up, that wagging finger in his mind was taking over his determinedness. What would be the consequences of this? Would Clark go to jail? Maybe there was a way to just convince Chuck he had done it without actually doing it.

_Clark's a _baaaby...

Clark's eyebrows furrowed. He typed in some codes into his hacking device. Clark faced the "Access Denied" pop-up many times, but always found ways past it. He tried any key words he could grasp for permission into the delicate server. Firewalls after firewalls greeted him, but Clark pushed through. He tried all the backdoor cheats he could remember, and finally after sixty minutes of intense hacking, Clark was in.

Clark laughed and whooped. He leaned back in his chair and wiped the perspiration off his forehead. _Now to just leave a note proving I actually did it..._

Clark found the perfect spot: The Associations and Organizations page. It received the least hits. Clark had to think a minute before he typed in the little memo for his friend.

"_In your face, Bouncy."_

--

Two magenta eyes. Clark opened his eyes to see a man above him, sitting contently in a chair. His quick fingers were typing away at the laptop in front of him. He had on a plain green shirt and a mess of blonde hair.

But most intriguing were his eyes. How could they be that color? Magenta. Clark had never seen that before.

Then Clark wondered where the hell he was. Clark had already figured out that he was sideways on a wooden floor, but where was he? And why were there binds on his wrists and ankles?

The man with the Eyes turned to regard him. His eyebrows rose when he saw that Clark was awake.

"Oh, you're awake." The man said almost in monotone. His voice was high and nerdy. Now that Clark heard it, he wondered how old this man was. He was short, so he seemed younger than Clark. Twenty? No, he'd be in college right now if he was twenty. Maybe he was still at high school. Seriously, that's how young this man looked.

"Querl Dox." The man said. He got up and extended an arm. "Though most people around here call me Brainy, since I'm the most intelligent person in the building. Nice to meet you."

_His name is Querl?_ Clark thought. He was about to say something about that when he realized his mouth was taped over. Clark made muffling noises, but the tape wouldn't come off, nor would Brainy help.

"We needed to take certain ... restrictions." Brainy explained.

_What the hell?_ Clark thought frantically.

Brainy's other arm joined his extended arm (which Clark didn't know why was extended in the first place. Brainy obviously knew Clark couldn't shake it) and wrapped around Clark's torso. Clark's bewildered thought repeated louder in his head as Brainy lifted him up into a sitting position. From this close, Clark could smell Brainy.

... but he couldn't. Brainy had no scent at all. It was as if he were a robot.

Clark had finally managed to sit upright. Brainy glanced into Clark's blue eyes – something that made his heart flip – before standing up. Brainy pulled him up while Clark pushed off the floor. They never once broke eye contact. Brainy had such strange eyes that Clark found himself lost in them.

_Must be contacts, or something._ Eyes of that depth and color were impossible. Once they finally managed to get Clark standing, they held their gaze for a second, and then Brainy stepped back. Clark couldn't help wanting Brainy pressed up against him again.

"_Imra_!" Brainy sharply cried.

A soft voice answered from the other room. "Yes, Brainiac Five?"

"Do you posses a pair of wire cutters?"

_Wire cutters?_ Clark thought. _They tied me up that tight? Where the hell am I?_

A woman older than Brainy—about, Clark had to say, five years—with long blonde hair which was lighter and had less color than Brainy's, glided into the room. Saturn models dangled from her ears.

"Oh? Who's this?" Her voice was breathy but smooth.

Brainy took the wire cutters from her hand and began to work at the rope around Clark's ankles. "Subject Clark Kent, age twenty-four, height one-hundred-eighty-two-point-eight centimeters, weight approximately one-hundred-fifty pounds."

_Whoa, hey_. Clark warned in his mind. _Where'd he get all this info?_

Brainy got up from Clark's ankles. Clark looked down to see that his legs were free. He was just about to run for it when something snapped onto his wrist. Clark regarded it. Handcuffs. Fuck.

"Not so fast there, Clark." Brainy said. The other handcuff was on his wrist. "We'll need to get you to Rokk and Garth first."

Clark was taken to another office. It was about seven rooms away from Brainy, and it was during the trip there that Clark observed his surroundings. It looked like a normal office building. There weren't any cubicles, but there were offices with people on laptops or people talking on the phone. Clark had no idea in his mind where he was, and he was starting to get more than a little frustrated.

Brainy tugged Clark closer when they got to a much bigger office. There were two chairs and two separate desks in the room. One of them had dark hair and – was that a pink shirt? He didn't have even a ghost of a smile on his face. The other had bright orange hair and a button-down dark blue shirt. He wore a cap with a lightning bolt on it.

"Hey, Brainy. What you got?" The orange-haired man asked. He had a loud voice that sounded like it would permanently have a smirk or a smile behind it.

Brainy locked the door behind him and started on the handcuffs. "Subject Clark Kent. Hacked into our mainframe server at approximately ten thirty PM eastern time last night. Was taken here by Jim and his friends at four twenty AM."

"Oh yeah, I remember you." The orange-haired man sneered, tilting his body forward. Clark was glad his mouth was taped over, or he would have let out a whimper.

Brainy cut through the binds on Clark's wrists when the pink-shirted man stood up. "I'm Rokk Krinn. My partner over here is Garth Ranzz (The orange-haired man gave a little wave). We're Brainy's co-bosses, and your bosses soon enough."

_Again, what the hell is going on here?_ Clark thought.

Rokk sat down. "Do you know why you're here, Mr. Kent?"

Brainy grabbed at the end of the tape on Clark's mouth. Clark was so preoccupied with Brainy's face so close and those fingers touching him softly that it was completely unexpected when Brainy ripped off the tape.

"FUCK!" Clark screamed. His hands flew to his mouth and the cold that hit them was heavenly. Garth chuckled to himself in the background, but Clark ignored it. He focused on letting the hurt die down. _God,_ that hurt.

Clark pushed down his impulse to let out a stream of swears and composed himself. "No, I don't know why I'm here, but I'm thinking I hacked into the wrong site to show Chuck that I'm not a wuss."

"Chuck?" Garth blurted.

"You hacked into our database, and we had to take you in before you knew about us." Rokk explained. He and Garth seemed about the same age; Rokk just seemed more professional and Garth was the laidback kid everyone liked.

Wait a minute—what'd he say? Clark argued, "I wouldn't know about this – organization thing – if you hadn't taken me here in the first place!"

"Wouldn't you have told someone?" Rokk replied. "This 'Chuck', maybe?"

Clark paused, but then hung his head. Rokk was right; the whole point of hacking into that site was to tell Chuck. But still--

"You're probably wondering who we are exactly." Rokk said. "The CIA. I'm sure you recognize that name from the media and maybe a Civics textbook."

Clark's eyes bulged. "The _CIA?_ You have to be joking! I mean, I—whoa, that's ... that's a lot of information right there."

"So now you know why you must keep this whole deal a secret." Rokk explained. "CIA agents must keep their jobs a secret. No one must know."

"Imra will take you back." Garth told Clark. "Tomorrow you'll officially start your training. Be ready, Clark."

--

Clark was sitting in a leather seat in a red Honda Accord. Not a car a secret agent would have. Actually, when Clark thought about it more, it did make sense, because secret agents always tried to blend in, and a junky car would be something people wouldn't notice at all.

"You must be shocked." Imra's cool voice washed over Clark.

Clark glanced at her, then went back to watching the buildings run. Judging from the sun steadily rising, Clark guessed it was six in the morning. Also there was that electronic clock in Imra's car that showed neon green numbers. Yep, it was six o' clock.

"Yeah, I've never done anything big like this before." Clark answered. "I mean, even in school, I never got all A's, and I didn't even try out for any sports teams. I was just a normal kid. And now I'm... I'm..."

"You're still a normal person." Imra convinced him. "You're still you. You just have a secret job, a secret identity. We should give you a name."

"A name?"

"When we're on electronic devices, cell phones, PDAs, web chatting," Imra explained, "We don't use each other's real names, just for the sake of secret identities. Garth is Lightning, Rokk is Cosmo, and I'm Saturn."

"What about Brainy?"

"... well, he kinda adopted his screen name. He's Brainy, since his real name is Querl. Anyway, we should give you one. Though we need some more information on you."

"I want to be a journalist. And I like sandwiches."

Imra parked her car and gave Clark a sly look. Clark glanced around him and laughed. "Well, looks like we're here." He started getting out of the car. "Um, thanks for the ride."

"You're welcome." Imra replied. She drove away as Clark turned to greet his shop. The sign 'Please: A convenience store' welcomed him in. The store wasn't to open until seven, so Clark had plenty of time. He went in the back and took a quick nap.

--

"OH, MY GOD, CHUCK! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

"_Shh!_ You'll wake him!"

Clark's eyelids fluttered open to see Salu's red face glowering down at Chuck's. Clark blinked and sat up to get a better view at what was happening. Apparently, Chuck had knocked over another stand of ... what was it this time?

"Hair dye?" Clark asked for confirmation. His words came in a slur and he cleared his throat to chase it away.

Salu and Chuck whipped their heads over to him. Salu's shrill was completely unexpected to Clark's ears, which were slowly getting out of sleep mode. "Well, it's about time he woke up, anyway! The store's been opened for ten minutes—"

"Though we haven't gotten any customers." Chuck butt in.

"—and _Chuck_ here can't be trusted in carrying some simple supplies from one place to another without knocking over a hair dye pyramid!" Salu shrieked, glaring at Chuck who was standing up now.

Chuck ignored her and walked over to Clark. He gave Clark a pat on the shoulder as Clark stood up. "Hey, buddy, you all right? Sorry about Violet over there. Dude, you looked completely _stomped_; what were you doing last night?"

_Hacking into a government site that got me kidnapped and stuck in some secret agent business, _Clark thought, but he didn't dare voice his thoughts. Instead he changed into his store shirt and got to work. It was just a normal day at the store: receiving shipments, cleaning the floor, helping customers. It was so typical that Clark thought that maybe he had been dreaming about the whole spy business. Maybe there was no Brainy, no Garth and Rokk, no Imra. He was still Clark Kent, and his best friends in the world were Chuck Taine and Salu Digby. He was not a secret agent, he was not—

A jingle rang from Clark's pocket. Clark took out his cell phone to see a new text message on the screen:

_Your training begins today. I will be waiting for you at home._

_Yep, I'm a secret agent,_ Clark concluded. He looked at the return phone number, and saw that all it said was "Withheld". He had no clue who had texted him and who would be waiting for him at home.

"Who you texting, Clarky?" Clark turned to see Chuck staring over Clark's shoulder. Fortunately Clark had exited out of the message already.

Clark pocketed his cell phone. "No one." It wasn't a lie. He hadn't texted; someone had texted him.

Chuck gave him a disbelieving look. "Hiding secrets from your _best friend?_ How rude."

"Chuck, get those pictures developed, will you?" Salu demanded. Chuck had to leave quickly before Salu could do anything to him. Clark was glad; only his first day and already someone else might have figured out Clark was a secret agent.

"It's going to be a long day." Clark muttered to himself before arranging the prescriptions of pills in order.

--

Clark's hand froze in its journey to the doorknob. Images briefly bombarded his mind: Imra, Garth, Rokk, Brainy. Who would be on the other side? Or was it a new person?

Clark took a deep breath and sharply turned the knob. The door creaked open in the darkness and Clark stood there a moment as cold air and his familiar smell whooshed into him. Clark then entered his apartment and flipped on the lights.

Brainy was lying on his couch, fast asleep.

He was wearing another green shirt, this time a darker shade. Some blonde locks fell in front of Brainy's calm face. Clark squatted in front of him and wished Brainy's beautiful eyes were open. Clark took this time to fully observe the man: He was thin and short; he took up approximately two thirds of the couch. His skin was perfect, not a sign of acne shown. Brainy looked so peaceful in comparison to his usual alertness that Clark didn't want to wake him.

Clark's desire to see the purple eyes flared, and before he knew it, Clark's was lightly shaking Brainy's shoulder. "Brainy..." Clark called softly.

The magenta in Brainy's eyes gave a wave of relief over Clark. Brainy woke up similar to how a hamster did: his eyes fluttered open sleepily, he closed them, and the next time he opened them, he was wide awake. His head jerked up and he glanced around for a second, then he rubbed his head, sending his blonde locks in every direction.

"I apologize," Brainy muttered, bringing himself to a sitting position, "I was up all night researching."

"I hope _I_ don't end up like you." Clark said.

Brainy shook his head, either to disagree or to shake the sleep off him. "No, I have devised a plan to get you an adequate amount of sleep. Your convenience store is open from seven a.m. to eleven p.m, but you leave at nine. That's fourteen hours. Twenty-four minus fourteen is ten, and you need at least six hours of sleep to regulate properly. That means you'll have to be at headquarters three hours a day, leaving one hour to get ready for work or whatever. Now personally, I don't think that's enough time—"

"Oh, I can work at eight and leave at eight." Clark suggested. "We don't get many people during those hours."

"Perfect. Twelve, six, one, added together—that makes nineteen, which leaves five hours for us. A better schedule, though I would like six hours. You will need to change your biological clock and get used to sleeping at two in the morning instead of ten thirty."

_How much information did you guys get on me?_ Clark wondered as Brainy stood. He grabbed his messenger bag and left, waiting for Clark to catch up.

Brainy had a better car than Imra: a black Nissan Altima. As they started making their way to headquarters, Clark asked Brainy how old he was.

"Nineteen." Brainy answered.

Clark frowned. "Wait, but that means you're still in college."

"Graduated two years ago."

"Nuh-uh. You can't be _that_ smart."

Brainy just gave him a wry smile.

When they got to headquarters, several people greeted them as they walked to Brainy's office. They didn't always say 'Brainy' or 'Querl', though.

"How come some people call you 'Brainiac Five'?" Clark asked as soon as they were in Brainy's office. Brainy was busy booting up his computer and getting all the papers in order.

"There were four other guys—well, one was a girl-- before me who were just as smart as me." Brainy explained while Clark settled in a chair, "I'm the fifth Brainiac."

"What happened to all the other ones?"

"Died in missions."

Clark's heart sped up and half a minute passed with silence. "What's the ... statistic or percentage that these people here die on missions?"

Brainy looked at Clark, the first time since they had been in the office. Clark felt that Brainy sensed Clark's fear—of course Brainy could sense it, it was practically radiating off him and screaming to the rest of the world. Brainy leaned over his desk to Clark. "You're not going to die, Clark. You'll be with me, and I've been on hundreds of missions, some with very bad circumstances."

Clark felt better. He could trust Brainy. Even though they had just met, he felt like he could trust Brainy with his life. Of course, it might have been just because Clark knew he would hide behind Brainy in times of a mission. Now that he mentioned it, Brainy looked too short and tiny to handle any big guys. Though he must have had some kind of secret to make it this far.

Brainy stood up abruptly. He reached inside his bag and took out a Starbucks Double Shot. "Here, you're gonna need this."

Clark took it, but showed no signs that he was going to drink it. "Why?"

"Your biological clock still thinks it's time to sleep. Wake up your system."

Clark followed Brainy out the door. "I'm fine, Brainy, really. This excitement is keeping me up."

Brainy gave Clark a steady look, and then took the coffee from Clark. "Whatever you say. I will keep it in the break room."

They stopped by the break room, and then went ahead to the gym on one of the lower floors. Clark hadn't kept in shape since high school gym class. Even running the treadmill for more than five minutes left Clark breathless. Not to mention his body was slowly relaxing and getting ready to go into sleep mode. Brainy was right about the Double Shot.

"We'll get you in shape first, and in about a week you and I will go sparring." Brainy explained while Clark took a quick breather. Brainy had been doing the treadmill along with the bicycle, stair master, and a couple others. He was breathing almost perfectly except for his chest heaving a little bit more than usual. Damn, he had amazing stamina.

Brainy smirked. "Actually maybe I'm too good for you. We should get you sparring with a more suitable opponent. I presume the weakest person on our floor?"

"Oh, that's just mean, Brainy." Clark said, barking out a laugh, "Am I really that bad?"

Or was the question if Brainy was really that good?

"I'll try to contact Reep." Brainy said, unsheathing his palm pilot from his pocket.

Clark arched an eyebrow. "Reep? What is it with you guys: Reep, Rokk, Querl... I mean, I've got Salu, but we call her Shrinking Violet a lot of times."

"Most people call Reep, Cam." Brainy suggested, searching for something in his phone. "His screen name's Chameleon. He adopted it, like me."

"By the way, Imra said that I wouldn't get my own name until you guys knew more stuff about me." Clark said. His breathing was almost even now, and he used this conversation as an excuse for getting more air. "So that means your names have to do about you, right?"

"Correct."

"I understand 'Brainy', but what about 'Lightning'? 'Chameleon'?"

Brainy opened his mouth to answer, but a noise came from the palm pilot he was holding up to his ear. "Yes, Reep, it's me. I have a favor to ask."

Clark blocked out the rest of the conversation and sat down on a nearby chair. It was just the first day and already he was exhausted. He glanced at a nearby clock and saw that an hour had gone by. Only four more to go.

Luckily for Clark, exercising was only one hour every day. Since Brainy was the computer guy, Brainy and Clark sat behind Brainy's laptop, learning all the secrets behind it.

"You'll get your own soon enough." Brainy explained. "We're ordering you one in a couple days. For now, you'll get to know my friend here: the Fujitsu Lifebook T4020. Though you'll be getting a Mac Air. Damn you. They look _so_ cool."

"A Mac? Me?" Clark said reluctantly, "Uh, I'm not really into Macs. I grew up on the PC and when I met my first Mac in the library in junior high, I almost threw it to the ground because it couldn't _half_ the size of the window or full size it. It was torture."

Brainy blinked. "Yeah, but this is that _Air_ we're talking about! You have to have seen the commercials?"

"I have, Brainy. And it's really cool. Just ... Macs freak me out. Here, _you_ can have it."

Brainy looked stricken. "Oh, I could never abandon my Lifebook." Brainy started calling someone on his palm pilot. "I guess it's a good thing we haven't put in the order yet." He held the phone to his ear and Clark listened to Brainy telling the secretary or whoever to change the order to a Sony SZ.

Brainy showed him the basics: the HTML codes. Clark knew those a little from Chuck's teachings. Then Brainy showed him how to hack into a site using the HTML code.

"Usually there's some sort of back-up link or button that lets you log in as an admin and then you can change anything you want." Brainy said. He demonstrated on a simple fan shrine of a cartoon character, changing the words "Robin rox!!" to "Robin rocks!"

After Clark tried to do the same thing to "Robin is sooo hawtt!!" Brainy asked how Clark hacked into the CIA site.

"I designed the site, and I put up some impressive firewalls and anti-virus programs. How did you get past them?" Brainy demanded with a fire behind his eyes.

Clark gulped. "Well, it was all in Flash, so I transferred it into HTML format, and did one of those EPA200 things and ... I tried a Rosebud for the firewall, but that didn't work, so I did a Trojan. That got though the first one. For the second one, I did a ... MG18-something..."

Brainy was trying very hard not to laugh. Clark had never been good with tech talk. Chuck handled that. Clark pictured Brainy and Chuck going on for hours about some cheat codes in video games. It spurred something in Clark, but Chuck extinguished the thought and feeling due to the confident thought that Chuck would never meet Brainy.

"I'm assuming you're a newbie at this?" Brainy chuckled, taking the laptop back. "Which is, actually, more disturbing for me. Better put up some more back-up on the site."

After Brainy showed him the simplest of cheat codes and assigned Clark to memorize them by the end of the week for a test, they moved on.

The next hour Brainy showed him the guns.

"Have you ever worked a gun before?" Brainy asked to begin with once they settled into the equipment room. It was specially guarded so that no enemies could get all this weaponry. Brainy had to enter a password and then the cabinets to the sides opened up, each filled with certain weapons— handguns, knives, machine guns, and possibly any other gun besides a laser gun. Clark wouldn't be surprised if he found a light saber in here.

Clark took a swig from his Double Shot. He had gone into the break room on their way to the equipment room and stolen it back. Brainy just gave him an I-told-you-so look.

"Only at arcades in the zombie shooting games." Clark admitted.

"Well, the simplest way to explain it is if you pull the trigger here, a hammer right about here gets pushed back. Then a spring jumps forward and makes the hammer push back. It hits the primer and ignites it. The primer sets off the propellant, which explodes, driving the bullet out of the gun."

Brainy showed Clark how to hold a hand gun, a shot gun, where to keep guns when they're hidden, and other stuff Clark needed to know. It was boring for now, but Brainy promised him that later he would do practice-shooting with Clark.

The fourth hour was studying.

"For now you'll be finding your way around headquarters, figuring out every single secret from air ducts to basements." Brainy instructed Clark, rolling out a blueprint of the building in front of Clark on a huge desk. "After that it'll be current events and learning what's happening in certain parts of the world, with certain known criminals, who the French Secret Service is—anything useful to know. If there's a big mission coming up, this time will be used for studying the plan and other material for the mission."

Clark almost fell asleep trying to memorize the blueprint. Headquarters ("Northeastern division", as Brainy called it) had ten floors, each with its own specialty. The seventh floor—the one Brainy worked on—was the floor with the co-bosses, and the floor sent on the close-range missions, usually lasting one to seven days. They were the most valued so they weren't sent on long-lasting missions away from home, where they might possibly lose contact with HQ.

The fifth and final hour compromised for the fourth hour's boringness. Clark would be learning the real deal.

"Jumping on buildings, sneaking around, you know, official spy stuff." Brainy said, watching the anxious smile creep upon Clark's face.

The first day, Clark learned the easiest and most important thing on their list: picking a lock. It was harder than it looked, even with the cheat lock picker and not paper clips like he had tried in middle school. Once Clark got it down to an adequate time (forty seconds), Clark and Brainy raced each other. Brainy was obviously better at it than Clark, so Brainy tried to see how many locks he could pick in the time limit of Clark picking one lock. It turned out Brainy had gotten to his fifth lock cracked when Clark was finally done.

"Five locks for Brainiac Five." Clark said with a grin. They were walking back to the car for Brainy to take him home.

Brainy threw him a smile. Clark frowned. "Hey, Brainy, what were the other Brainiacs like?"

Brainy's eyebrows shot up and he slowed walking. Clark stopped walking and waited. Brainy fidgeted, eyes darting left and right, then continued walking, keeping his head down. "Brainiac Four trained me. He was always a little annoyed at how I was better at stuff than he was. He would teach me something and within a week, I'd do it twice as fast as him. Well, not twice as fast. I'd say 1.4 times as fast."

"Wait, so if Brainiac Four trained you, then are you training me into a Brainiac Six?"

Brainy opened the door to his car. "No, I'm just training you into a CIA agent. I'm too young to be thinking about an heir."

They both got in the car. Brainy turned the keys and the car jerked to life. "Though we tried to get me a partner before."

"What happened to him?" Clark asked.

"Died in a mission."

Clark gulped. Though he wasn't worrying about it as much as he should have. After five hours of intense work, Clark's brain had turned into a gray mush. Clark went to bed without changing. He had never slept so soundly before.

--

A/N:

I promise that there will be more to this. I'm working on it. And yeah, there will be more Legion members, but I'll always include their superhero name somewhere, so you won't have to worry about researching people. Subscribe!


	2. Mission: Shoe Company

Ignore this

Thin fingers worked quickly, tapping at a roll-out keyboard under the cashier desk. Clark was decoding a bomb right here in his convenience store! Clark typed in the new codes Brainy showed him: 222c468c and a bunch of zeroes. Wait, was it five zeroes or six—

"You know, if you're trying to make a beat, you are failing miserably."

Clark looked up to see Chuck leaning against the counter and giving him a huge smile. Clark quickly rolled up his keyboard and tossed it in his bag underneath. Chuck saw nothing.

"Come on, man, let's hang out!" Chuck said, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "We haven't hung out in ages!"

"Uh, that's because I have—work to do." Clark stuttered, trying to keep a straight face.

"Work?"

"Yeah." Clark said, quickly finding an excuse. "My mom's been really sick, and I'm trying to help her."

Chuck's face contorted. "Ooh, old people duties."

"Yeah. Actually, geriatrics is the proper term for it."

"What?"

"Nothing." Clark replied, thinking inside, _Why am I such a nerd all the time?_ "Listen, aren't you gonna get in trouble with Salu if you just keep standing here. . .?"

Chuck pointed his thumb behind him. "She's working pharmacy. Hear me out, Clark: My sister's being a real douche and making me check in with her all the time with everything I'm doing. 'Hey, Sis, I'm at the mall,' 'Susan, I'm eating at a fast-food restaurant,' 'I'm playing Time Crisis at the arcade'—It's _torture,_ man!"

"Sounds like it, yeah." Clark said. He'd been through more severe torture at headquarters. He and Brainy had gone through trial bomb-decoding scenarios, and Clark had always been one or two seconds late. The disappointment in Brainy's eyes was intense. That was why Clark was practicing at work.

Chuck grinned up at him. "So what do you say we get off the radar and head over to the pier? They've got some awesome arcades and rides and food."

"I can't, Bouncy, I'm sorry." Clark denied, turning to the computer.

The day went by with Chuck begging and suggesting different ways to get out of Clark taking care of Clark's mom. Finally, Clark promised Chuck that if he was free from his chores, he would hang with Chuck. On the ride home, Clark felt sorry for Chuck. There was no chance he would be released from training.

--

Clark was surprised to see Cam when he opened the door to his apartment. Usually Brainy picked him up, with the exception of Imra once. Cam was a fairly tan boy with bright green eyes. He worked in the animal department.

Cam grinned, revealing his canines. "Yo, Clark. I made you some food. You have _no_ ingredients in your refrigerator whatsoever."

Clark glanced at the sandwich while walking over to his room. As he changed into a new shirt, he called out to Cam. "Cool. As long as I don't find myself puking it out while we spar."

Cam barked a laugh. "Maybe you'll beat me today."

"Yeah, fourth time's the charm." Clark said sarcastically. He came out, grabbed the sandwich and a water bottle he had put in the fridge that morning, and walked out the door, Cam at his heels.

Clark ate while Cam drove to headquarters. He swallowed a difficult piece of the sandwich, and then said, "So why can't I drive by myself? Wouldn't it be easier gas wise and energy wise for you?"

"Well, you're not a regular part of the team yet." Cam explained. "It's only been five days, Clark. You might bail on us anytime."

"I wouldn't even think of it." Clark argued. He took a swig of his water. No, leaving the CIA would mean leaving Brainy. And he couldn't do that, to Brainy or to himself.

"Well, you haven't gone on your first mission yet." Cam shrugged. "That might change a few things."

Clark wondered what that meant, but didn't really want to find out. When he got to Brainy's office, he found a Post-it on the desk instead of his blonde friend.

_Rm. 541_, it read. Clark frowned, but headed out.

Clark had memorized the entire building like he had been assigned to. He quickly found the room that Brainy was – hopefully – residing in. It was one of the interrogation rooms. Clark knew that from his research, but he had never seen the inside of it. There was a small, dimmed room for spectators. Another room inside held a long table and, in this case, Brainy.

Clark entered the room and sat across from Brainy. Brainy's face was void—unusually more so.

Brainy pointed to a glass cup at Clark's end of the table. "Drink that."

Clark looked down at the clear solvent, sniffed the odorless liquid, then gulped it down. "Tastes like nothing."

"It's supposed to. Easier to insert into drinks without the taster noticing." Brainy agreed. "It's sodium pentothal. A truth serum."

Clark froze at that. Why would Brainy make him drink a truth serum?

Brainy leaned forward. "Sometimes, CIA agents are taken captive and interrogated by pursuers. In order to preserve the truth, we must learn to fight against the polygraphs and truth serums."

Clark didn't trust himself to speak.

"Let's start with something easy." Brainy sat up straighter, finger on his chin in thought. "What is your name? Your _full_ name."

Clark wanted to experiment and see what would happen if he tried to lie, but he chickened out and just answered, "Clark Joseph Kent."

"Of course, that wouldn't be easy if you were operating under a code name." Brainy added. "One could enter Clark Joseph Kent into any certified database, and acquire restricted information." Brainy pursed his lips. "Okay. What is the name of your convenience store?"

"Please: A convenience store."

"Now, try to fight against this one." Brainy laid both palms flat on the table. "In which agency do you take part?"

_The CIA,_ Clark thought, but he extinguished that thought and tried to pick another one. "Wait, what's a safe answer?"

"Any answer other than the truth."

". . . The—"

Clark gasped sharply. He had tried to say 'The FBI', but suddenly a wave of pressure overcame him. Perspiration lined his forehead and upper lip. The room seemed to be crushing. His heart was pounding.

"The—" Clark tried again, but choked. He closed his eyes and smacked his hands to the side of his head. Everything was so loud! "_God!_ The CIA!"

Slowly the pain and pressure lifted. Clark's breathing evened out and he opened his eyes to look at Brainy. Brainy had an understanding look on his face.

"It's difficult, isn't it?" Brainy stated.

"_Difficult?_ It's terrible! Impossible!"

"Not impossible, no." Brainy shook his head, sighing. "What is your mentor's name?"

"Mentor? I—" Clark tried to clear his mind. He thought, 'Brainy' in his head, and he felt fine. Just the tiniest thought of lying made the room spin. "B-Brainy."

"His _full_ name!"

"Brainiac Five! Q-Querl D . . . Dox."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No." Clark didn't even bother trying with that one. He didn't have any, so there could be no harm done.

"Do you have a loved one?"

Clark paused. "Loved one?" Clark stared down Brainy. He searched Brainy's magenta eyes, but couldn't find any emotion back. "You mean, someone that I love, or someone that loves me?"

"Either one's fine with me." Brainy answered. "Either one's useful for an assassin."

Clark couldn't tell if Brainy was actually interested in what Clark had to say, or if Brainy was just acting the part of the evil interrogator. "Not love, no. I don't think that's what it is."

Brainy and Clark were staring at each other so intensely that an observer would believe they were secretly communicating. Finally Brainy asked, "Is it mere attraction between you and this other person?"

"I'm not sure if the other person is . . . attracted to me," Clark trailed off. He swallowed. "But yeah, I'm attracted to him."

If Brainy made any connection in his head, he didn't show it. He merely got up from his seat and started to walk over to Clark's side. "You made a weak point, Clark. Men have a soft spot for attractive women, but this makes it much easier for the interrogator, _if_ he's a boy as well."

Brainy sat on the corner of the table and slid over so that he was in front of Clark. "Of course, it would be difficult if the interrogator was a woman." Brainy put his arms behind his back and spread his legs out. "She would have no charm or effect on the victim."

Brainy leaned forward slightly and bit his lip. "If the victim was you."

Clark's mouth had gone dry. He couldn't take his eyes off Brainy, and, _god_, the way he was sitting. Clark's heart was beating at a dangerously high pace, as high or possibly higher than when he was trying to lie. And if Clark wasn't aroused enough, Brainy's slow lick at his lips definitely did _something_ to his downstairs area.

But just as suddenly as Brainy had hopped onto the table, he jumped back off. "Agents also must learn to seduce, but another lesson, another time."

Clark bit back the urge to ask if they could carry on the lesson now.

Brainy sighed, facing Clark. "Well, _that_ lying lesson was a failure. The pentothal should wear off in a couple minutes. That's all for today."

Brainy lead the way out. Clark had to talk his erection down a bit before going out. Brainy continued, "It might not be safe to leave just yet, since you're obviously very weak to truth serums. You can stay in the building or—" Brainy turned to Clark. "We could go out."

Brainy had the same look in his eyes that he had back when he was seducing Clark. Clark wasn't going to miss this opportunity. The instant he was going to open his mouth, Chuck's face popped up in his mind. Chuck had been so desperate, and Clark _had_ promised to call him if he wasn't doing anything that night.

Brainy saw the hesitation and looked surprised and disappointed for a second, but the look was immediately thrown away. "You understand that you can't leave the building alone until the serum wears off, Clark."

Clark sighed. "Yeah. I guess I'll just hang around for a while and then go."

"Where do you have to be?"

"Chuck wanted to hang out."

Brainy was surprised. "Oh. Your . . . friend from the store?"

"Yeah. Though he wanted to go to the pier. It's already pretty late." Clark regarded Brainy. "Hey, Brainy, do you think I could get tomorrow off? For Chuck's sake."

"You need as much training as possible in these starting days." Brainy turned to Clark. "No."

The next couple minutes, Clark sat in Brainy's office, going over the CIA secret phrases. There were a different ones for 'I'm in trouble', 'I'm safe', 'I need backup/weapons', stuff like that. Every couple minutes, he tested himself by trying to lie and seeing if he could successfully get it out or not. Finally he said that his "wife was 42", and he got up to leave.

"I'll drive you." Brainy offered. He stood up from his laptop and started to lead the way out. Clark was hesitant, but he left, anyway.

--

"Oh, sorry, man, I can't!" Chuck told Clark over the phone. Clark currently sat in Brainy's car. Brainy was driving steadily to nowhere in particular.

Clark blanched. "What? Why the hell not?"

"Susan's all tight right now." Chuck explained quickly, "We just sat down to dinner and all. She brought her boyfriend over and we're supposed to be 'bonding'. I'm sorry, Clarko."

"Yeah, Bouncy. I'll see you later."

"Listen, we can go tomorrow! I'm _dying_ to—"

"_Where_ are you going?" Susan's voice shrilled in the background.

"_Nothing,_ Susan! I gotta go."

Chuck hung up. Clark sighed. He was disappointed and angry that Chuck had brushed him off like that. But then he remembered Brainy. Clark turned to Brainy, who was waiting patiently for Clark to give him the news. Brainy had already pretty much figured out that Chuck couldn't hang out.

"So what do you want to do?" Brainy asked. There was no hint on his face as to what Brainy wanted.

Clark glanced at the clock. He'd been missing his sleep ever since he had been put on this new schedule of going to headquarters and everything. And since Clark didn't have his daily energy drink today, he was extremely tired.

"Can I just—"

"You look sleepy." Brainy quickly observed, "I'll drive you home."

Clark fell asleep before he even made it home.

--

Clark came into Brainy's office the next day to greet another Post-it.

_In the bosses' office. Come by._

Clark's heart nearly stopped. Was he in trouble? Clark dropped his water bottle on Brainy's desk, and quickly headed out. He suddenly became aware of everything around him: every person in their office, every footstep his sneakers made, every glance toward him. Clark remembered every time he had gotten in trouble before: cheating on a test, stealing some of his mom's money, kicking at a little girl when he had failed the Science final.

"He looks confused."

Clark blinked. When had he gotten inside the bosses' office? Clark looked around, noting Garth and Rokk in their usual places behind desks. Brainy stood beside him.

"You're not in trouble." Brainy said, extinguishing Clark's earlier suspicions. "I've just been issued a mission that will take place in exactly 3 days. Would you like to come?"

Clark had to take a second to gather his thoughts. How did Brainy know that Clark had been thinking about being in trouble? "Um, what? Yeah, sure. Wait, am I ready?"

"It's just for observance." Rokk reassured. "You'll be there, and you'll watch Brainy do his stuff. Visual learning."

Clark was nervous again. Before he could stutter about how he didn't think he was ready, Brainy answered, "He's ready. It's not like he'll be doing anything."

"Can you take care of him?"

Brainy's eyes darkened. "Of course I can fucking take care of him."

"Okay, sorry—"

"I'm not a fucking _child_, Rokk!"

"Whoa, Brainy, take it easy!" Garth assured. "So you'll take the kid. Okay. You guys are to get to LaGuardia airport in 3 days. The tickets will be on your desk tomorrow, Brainy."

Brainy left in a huff. Clark shuffled out behind him, and they headed to his office. Brainy was mumbling to himself, "They always treat me like I'm a damn kid, just because I'm younger than them. I have _twice_ the amount of intelligence as them, the bastards…!"

Clark had never seen him so frustrated before. Brainy sighed, looked up at Clark, and then said, "Well, let's get started with your exercises. Our research time will be used for the mission now, as you've probably already figured out."

Brainy led Clark down to the gym. On their way, Clark said, "You know, I don't remember getting out of your car."

"You were fast asleep. SWS, by the looks of it. I brought you inside to your bed."

"You can't have picked me up!" Clark blurted. Brainy barely came up to Clark's shoulder, and he was skinny as hell.

Brainy crossed his arms and glared the same glare he had given to Rokk. "I'm not _weak_, you know."

Clark shook his head. "No, of course not." He had never sparred Brainy, but the fact that Brainy was purposely holding off must have meant he was _really_ good.

--

Clark couldn't hang out with Chuck the following day like they had promised. Brainy wouldn't let Clark miss out on a day now that they had a mission. Clark didn't really want to miss out, either; if Clark died because he missed one crucial detail of research, he'd feel extremely stupid. Or dead.

The mission was a bomb. A death threat to Edgeman, a shoe company that had received a strange death threat once before.

"They notified the police, police asked us to figure out if it was authentic or not." Brainy had explained last night. "We decided that it wasn't. But, well, it turned out it was."

Luckily, the CIA caught it just in time, so nobody died. Still, Edgeman thought the CIA had purposely lied about the threat not being real so that Edgeman would fall. Or that the CIA performed the death threat. This new death threat was a chance for the CIA to redeem themselves. That and to show that the CIA didn't hate Edgeman.

"Look at my Edges, Clark!" Salu exclaimed, leaning in an awkward position to show her shoes to Clark.

Clark pursed his lips. Why did he have to save a company that didn't have good shoes? "They're okay."

"But look at how shiny they are!"

Clark laughed. Salu frowned. "Clark, what's up? You've been different lately."

"I have?"

"You should take Chuck out for a date." Salu offered. "Hang out with him. Like old times."

"Yeah, I know. Chuck's been saying the same thing." Clark sighed. The CIA had been giving him too many problems.

"So, will you do it?" Salu asked. "Take him out?"

Clark shook his head. "I can't, Violet, I'm sorry. I'm busy for the next 3 days."

Salu frowned, and nodded.

--

Clark was in the shadows. He didn't know that 'observance' meant 'don't be seen. Watch Brainy from far away.' Clark and Brainy were to go in two separate cars. Clark didn't have a car (it seemed unreliable in the city) so Imra gave him a ride. He stood somewhere far off, but kept the parking lot in view. He waited.

And then Brainy came in his black Nissan Altima. Clark kept Brainy in his sight, but kept a distance of 5 yards between them. Clark had to keep reminding himself to relax and look candid, but he was so nervous. Brainy casually walked for half a mile until he got to a pier. Clark suddenly remembered Chuck's disappointed face when Clark told him he couldn't hang at the pier. Clark frowned.

Brainy walked out to a man in sunglasses, standing around not too suspiciously. As soon as they started talking, Clark's cell phone went off. Clark quietly swore, and then immediately glanced around to see if anyone heard him. They hadn't noticed him until he had looked around. Clark swore again.

"Hello?" Clark whispered into his cell phone.

"Clark, dude, I made it!" Chuck exclaimed. "I'm out! Susan's got no idea where I am!"

"That's great." Clark said. He was sure he'd be more excited for his friend if he wasn't on an important mission at that moment. "Wait, so Salu's at the store alone?"

"No way! Clark, I'm not _that_ irresponsible. This girl came in and said she was subbing for you. A friend of yours."

"What?"

"Darn, I forgot her name. Light blonde hair, skinny, I'd say a B-cup—"

"Imra?"

"Yeah, I guess." Chuck said. Clark was confused. Imra was subbing in for him? "Well, that girl convinced Shrinking Violet that I didn't need to be there."

Brainy and the man started walking back over near a building. Clark followed them. "Okay. Listen, Chuck, can I call you back in a sec? I'm sort-of busy—"

"No, man, you're playing hooky and you're busy?"

"I'm not playing hooky, I'm doing something very important—"

"Just come on over here to the pier. 88. I'm just eating some ice cream on a bench, but I'll be in the arcade soon. See you!"

Chuck hung up. Clark's eyes shifted over to a sign, and read "Pier 88". Oh no, Chuck was in the same pier as him! Brainy might not dismantle the bomb in time and then Chuck would die! Or Chuck would see Clark being a secret agent, and tell everyone!

Brainy was over by the building. The shadow of the structure blanketed them, so that Clark couldn't tell what Brainy was crouched down in which to look. Clark took this chance to scan the area around him. There was no ice cream stand, so Chuck couldn't be around. Still, Clark knew where the arcade was, and it was just a brisk walk over from where Clark was standing.

Clark leaned against the railing of the dock, and watched Brainy mess with something on the ground. The man was covering it up, standing at the perfect angle between Clark and Brainy, but Clark imagined the bomb was about a foot high by the way Brainy was holding his hands. Who would leave a bomb out in the open, anyway?

In a matter of seconds, Brainy stood back up and nodded at the man. They exchanged a few words, and then the man took the bomb and Brainy started to leave. He walked straight to Clark with a small smile on his face. Clark couldn't help returning the smile, and he was about to move to Brainy, when another man waltzed swiftly up behind Brainy. He held something to Brainy's back that made Brainy freeze. The man whispered something in Brainy's ear, and then Brainy was escorted into a car.

Before Clark knew what he was doing, he was screaming after the car pulling away. Another man came out from a nearby car and shot at Clark. Clark gasped and ducked, just barely missing the bullet. He split, running as fast as he could away from the man. The man sprinted over, touching his earpiece and muttering quickly into it.

Clark pulled out his own cell phone and called Imra.

"Saturn."

"Imra! I mean, Saturn!"

"Clark?"

"Oh, thank god. Listen, we were set up. Brainy's captured."

"What? Oh, no."

"What do I do?"

"Just wait. I'll notify Triplicate and Lightning."

"I don't know who that is, but hurry! One of them saw me and I'm running—"

Clark tripped. He glanced back and saw that the man was gaining quickly. Clark scrambled up and ducked into a store around the corner. As soon as he got in, he realized his mistake. He was to stay away from public. Clark moved over to the window, searched through it, and located the arcade. It was just one store down! He had to keep away from the arcade. Chuck couldn't see him.

The door banged open, and gunshots rang out. Apparently the enemy had no intention of keeping on the down low. Customers and employers screamed and fled. Clark used the confused mob to duck behind a clothes rack.

Clark held his breath. The silence choked him. Clark heard no footsteps; he couldn't tell if the man wasn't moving or if he was moving very silently. Clark swallowed and shut his eyes tight.

"Clark?"

Clark swore silently and quickly hung up on Imra. He had forgotten it was on! Aah, the guy definitely knew where he was now and was probably looking straight at him! Clark had to move. He silenced his phone, pocketed it, and then glanced around. He quickly crawled over to another clothes rack, and then slid behind a shelf of snow globes. Briefly he wondered why there were snow globes in here, but then shook his head.

Cam had told him the basic steps of fighting an opponent in the field.

Step 1: Analyze the situation. What the hell did that mean? A 30-year-old man was hunting him down, Clark was in hiding. The man had a gun, Clark was unarmed. Neither knew the territory well.

Step 2: Scan the area. Clark scrutinized the place while he heard the man shuffling through the clothes in the clothes rack he had been in moments before. There was another exit about 15 feet away from him, but the path there was very barren, and no doubt the enemy would see the glass door open. Various objects—both hard and soft, heavy and light—were in shelves around him. He could use those as weapons.

_What am I talking about? The guy has a fucking _gun! _I can't beat him with, what, snow globes!_

The gun banged. Clark flinched. _I can't throw, either. What did I play as a kid? Soccer. So I guess I can kick. I can't kick it to his face! Can I?_

A bullet shot through the shelf next to Clark's shoulder. A snow globe shattered into bits, the liquid oozing on the floor. Clark gasped. _Or I could try to get that gun from him! And then I can do some hand-to-hand combat!_

"Hello."

Clark glanced up and found him looking into the barrel of a gun. _This better work._

Clark struck the gun with his palm. The gun went off, shooting the wall opposite him. Clark grabbed the barrel, and swung it forward. The gun slipped out of the man's hands, and flew into a revolving glasses rack. Clark stood up, only to get punched in the face. He stumbled back, but steadied his knees so he wouldn't fall. The man swung at him again, but Clark blocked it this time. The man punched with his other arm. Clark's hand shot out to block that, too. The man swung around his arms and somehow got out of Clark's grip, sending both their arms flying to their sides.

"Who are you?" The man demanded. "Are you with Querl?"

_Oh, damn, should I tell him? Maybe he won't kill me if he thinks I'm just an innocent bystander_.

"Don't worry, we're not gonna kill him." The man said. His eyes glanced at the gun on the floor. "Just a little questioning, that's all."

"You know, Peter the Great used 'questioning' as a cover-up for 'torture'." Clark blurted. He shook his head. "Not a good time to be nerdy, Clark."

The man's head cocked and a slight smile broke out. "That something you just know, or did you get it from whatever organization you're in with Querl?"

"I'm not in any organization!"

"In any case, you saw us take him away. We don't want any trouble."

"Oh, no trouble, no trouble." Clark hurriedly said. "I'm not gonna tell anyone or anything, I'll just keep my mouth shut—"

_What am I doing?_ Clark thought. He was running away when he should be chasing after Brainy. True, he had already told Imra, but what if they were delayed? They didn't even have a heading, and Clark had at least seen to what direction Brainy had gone off. Brainy needed him and Clark was running away like the baby of which Chuck made fun of him.

Clark stopped mid-rant and said, "You know what, screw it. You're gonna kill me anyway."

And he kicked the man sharply in the shin. The man hollered in pain as Clark thought, _Damn, I'm not some little girl! I should've picked a better spot to kick him, like the balls or stomach or something_. The man growled and slugged at Clark. Clark knocked it away with the heel of his hand, and then punched the man in the nose. The man stumbled back, worked his nose a bit, and then went full out on Clark. Clark dodged and punched and kicked and blocked, all the while chanting in his head that it was all just practice. The guy in front of him wasn't a killer; it was Cam. Clark was back in headquarters, sparring and learning from a friend.

Clark didn't know why or when, but he imagined a health bar over the man's head, like in the video games. As the battle went on, the man's attacks slowed and his breathing fastened. His health bar slowly depleted. Clark was so focused on the fighting and the health bar, that when the door opened, Clark didn't miss a step and just punched the man with all his weight, because his health bar was barely holding up and it was red and blinking. The man collapsed onto the ground, unmoving.

"Wow, Clark." Clark turned to see Cam standing in the doorway. "I guess I taught you well."

Clark spit a gob of blood out of his mouth. Cam came up to the body and searched it. Cam said, "Now, let's see who this guy is and who he's working for. I've already sent out some dogs to find Brainy's scent. He'll be back soon, don't worry."

Clark fell to the floor. "I feel like shit."

"Well, of course you feel like shit; it's your first real fight. Paramedics will take care of it. For now, though, you might wanna clean up in the bathroom."

While Cam looked through the man's wallet, Clark headed to the bathroom. His hair was messy, his mouth was bleeding, his face was bruised, and somewhere along the way, he'd gotten a black eye. Still, Clark tried to clean himself up as much as possible. Five minutes later, Clark smiled at his reflection, and then headed out.

There was a dog with Cam; Cam was talking to it when Clark came out. Cam straightened up and said, "They found him. Let's go."

"Were you just talking to that dog?"

"He's got a name, you know." Cam said as they hurried out to his car.

The dog ran ahead of them as Cam and Clark followed in Cam's car. Cam sighed, and said, "You know, Brainy's always getting in trouble with the bad guys."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, he's a smartass and it makes them all want to get revenge." Cam added, "That, and he's cute. You know, creepy molester guys."

Clark shivered. The thought of Brainy getting raped was terrifying, no matter how hot the thought of Brainy in sex was.

The dog led them to an abandoned office building. The dog sat at the door to the warehouse, wagging its tail anxiously. Cam pet it and then sent it off. He took out a hand gun.

"Hey, shouldn't I have one of those?" Clark asked, pointing at the gun.

Cam glanced at it, and then said, "Oh, you're not supposed to be here, are you? Sit back in the car, will you?"

If Clark was more experienced and less tired and scared, he would have refused. This time though, he nodded and started walking back to the car. The door opened from the inside. Cam raised his gun immediately, but relaxed it when he saw a blonde head poke out.

Brainy looked like he'd seen better days. His hair was askew, his body and face was bruised, and his shirt was wrinkled. Still, Clark had never been so relieved to just see Brainy alive. Cam asked Brainy if he was okay, and then they headed off to the car together.

Someone shot at them. The bullet hit the wall adjacent to them. Clark shrieked in fright, Cam jumped, but Brainy just flinched and muttered, "Goddammit!" He grabbed Cam's gun and shot at the man on top of the building across from them. One bullet was all Brainy needed for the man to fall down. Clark was impressed.

"The LSV—" Brainy rasped as they moved to the car.

"We know." Cam said.

"Hart Druiter."

"Figured it was him."

"Doesn't know who I work for."

"Good."

Brainy glanced at Clark. "How'd he do?"

"Knocked out a guy, big time. Punched him pretty hard."

Brainy smiled at Clark. "Is that so?"

With the paramedics back at Headquarters, they were told to relax for the next day. Brainy and Clark were bandaged up, given some pills, ice packs, and instructions, and then released. Brainy drove Clark home, even though Clark didn't think Brainy was in any condition to drive. He needed rest; they both did.

Brainy parked in the parking lot in front of Clark's apartment. He turned to Clark.

"I suppose you need a name then, don't you?" Brainy said softly.

Clark grinned in excitement. "Really? I get one? What's it gonna be?"

Brainy frowned. "Unexpected strength. Reliability. Quick-minded." He paused, and then decided, "Superman." Brainy mouthed it again, and then smiled. "Yes, that works. What do you think?"

"Superman? Wow, that makes me sound really big and important." Clark was flattered. "I mean, yeah, it sounds cool. Reliable, really? No one ever relies on me. I'm no one's Superman."

Brainy said, "You're my Superman."

Clark's heart flipped. Brainy traced his thumb along the bottom of the black spot around Clark's eye. Clark winced in pain, but the feeling of Brainy's hand on his face was so good that it blocked out the pain. Brainy softly kissed the bottom of the black eye. Clark's heart raced.

Brainy retreated and smiled at Clark's shocked face. They sat there for a couple seconds, and then Brainy finally said, "Well, don't you have a home in which to go?"

Clark blinked. "Oh, yeah. Yeah." He got out of the car and walked to the front of the apartment. He glanced back at Brainy, who was smiling. Clark smiled back, and then walked in.

--

A/N:

This chapter was really awkward, because there were a lot of sentences that had "which" and stuff. I was going through it, and I ended a lot of sentences with a preposition, so I had to switch things around. Sentences are so awkward without prepositions at the end.

Oh, yeah, and I hope everyone's cool with the swearing. There's a bit more in the next chapter.


	3. Mission: The Strokes

Ignore this

In at the top of the tower  
Was the bottom of the hour  
I want it back and its just over there  
Knowing something else  
I reacted to the owner  
The only thing I'd seen with my eyes  
She said

Clark had his eyes closed while sitting at the cashier desk. He let the words and the guitar wash over him and take over his mind. It was so settling to just let go of everything to the music.

"What you listening to, Clark?"

Clark peeled his eyes open to see an eager Chuck. Clark lowered the volume on his iPod, and said, "The new Strokes song."

"Oh right. '10001'?" That was the title of the song. "It's up for downloading?"

"iTunes, yeah. The album's not coming out for a while, but at least they released a single."

"Yeah, cool."

Chuck was silent. Clark waited for a while, and then said, "What?"

"Nothing. I'm just remembering last week when there was that fight in that store—"

Clark rolled his eyes. "Dude, you've been talking about that every day since it happened."

"But it's so cool!" Chuck argued with an exclamation. "The day when I finally hung out and got away from my sister, this big epic battle happened near me—"

"It wasn't epic, Chuck."

"How the hell do you know?"

Clark blinked. "Nothing. I don't know."

"Exactly. You should've been there, Clark. Really, it was cool."

"I'm sure it was. But hey, we got to hang out yesterday. So you can't complain about us not hanging out anymore."

Chuck frowned and sighed. Clark laughed, ruffled Chuck's hair, and then went back to The Strokes.

--

Clark opened his apartment to hear "10001" coming from the couch. Brainy sat there, glaring at his laptop.

"Didn't know you were into The Strokes, Brainy." Clark said. He started moving about, getting ready.

"I'm not. Not really. I do admire Mr. Valensi's skills and his Epiphone Riviera, but Julian Casablancas could work on some things with his voice, unless it's his intention to slur every note and go off-key sometimes." Brainy sighed. "No, I'm not much into music. It's a waste of time. But if I must, I like Daft Punk. You ready?"

"Almost." Clark called from his room.

Clark heard the wooden floor groan, and turned to see Brainy in the doorway. Clark had just pulled off his shirt and was about to change into a new one. Brainy smirked. He quickly caught up to Clark and pressed a kiss to him. Clark moaned in surprise, but returned the kiss. Brainy pulled Clark to him as Brainy fell back on the bed. Clark broke the kiss to look at Brainy. He was still smirking. Brainy dove up for another kiss, wrapping his arms around Clark's neck.

"Mm, Brainy," Clark moaned as Brainy's tongue swiped at his lips.

Brainy laughed, and then wriggled out from under Clark. "Hurry up. We should go." He turned back and added, "By the way I'm not driving you starting tomorrow. We'll get you a car."

"I don't want a car. We're in New York, Brainy. Where can I park a damn car in New York?"

Brainy shrugged and walked out. "Fine by me. I'll talk to Garth."

--

Garth didn't like Clark. It was obvious. He would glare and always crack jokes about Clark's skinny body or his geeky air. Rokk acknowledged it, but didn't make a move to stop him.

"We've got a new mission for you two." Garth started off with after Brainy explained about the car ordeal. Rokk had been fine with it, but Garth had said nothing. "Have you guys heard the new Strokes song?"

"Yeah." Clark said. He would've added a 'Who hasn't?' but _man_, Garth scared him.

"Well, it's turned out that they didn't make it." Garth continued.

"What?"

"It wasn't them. Some kid made it and released it, and said it was The Strokes."

"Why would anyone do that?" Clark asked.

"That's what you're gonna find out. Look at the lyrics. Play it backwards. Pick out hidden tracks. Don't worry, _Superman_, Brainy's here to help you out."

Clark managed to keep his mouth shut until they got out of the office. "Brainy, why does Garth hate me so much?"

"It happened before with my other partner." Brainy explained.

"The one who died?"

Brainy glared. "_Thank you_ for putting it so fucking bluntly_, _Clark."

"Sorry—"

"His name's Lyle." Brainy said. Honestly, Clark hadn't meant to say it like that. It had just sort-of slipped out. "Lyle Norg. He and I were the same age. He matched my intelligence, but he had some sort-of … soft spot. When the orders came to kill someone, I killed them. But Lyle—Lyle would try to figure out if there was some way past it. He would research into the night to make sure we had the right guy."

Brainy glanced up at Clark. "Oh, but this doesn't explain Garth's rudeness. Garth wanted me. He still does. And when Lyle had me, Garth was upset. He doesn't like anyone who has me now."

"Has you?"

Brainy stopped walking and said, "Yes." He traced his index finger over Clark's lips, then pressed it to the middle of Clark's bottom lip. "You have me."

Clark wanted so badly to kiss Brainy's finger, to kiss Brainy and to hold him close. But Brainy was already gone by then, flying to the elevator.

Cam had deemed Clark ready to spar with Brainy. Clark denied quickly and pleadingly, because Brainy sounded scary to fight, but Cam had ignored him. Today was the first day sparring with Brainy.

It was hell. Brainy was so quick that Clark couldn't keep up with where he was. Brainy's kicks were solid and very specific. Brainy blocked and countered all of Clark's attacks. And he still managed to jeer at Clark.

"Come on, Clark."

"You can do better than that."

"Faster, Clark, faster."

Clark was horrified that he had tears in his eyes by just ten minutes in. Brainy, upon seeing this, stopped moving. He told Clark to sit down and brought over Clark's Propel. Clark drained it, even though he knew he should save some for later.

"That's all for today." Brainy decided. Clark was relieved. He didn't have the strength to talk back, so he just pointed to his empty bottle while looking at Brainy. Brainy nodded, "I possess one in the break room. Do you mind me retrieving it?"

Clark shook his head and waved for him to go ahead. As soon as Brainy left, Clark breathed in gulps of air. _Damn_, Brainy was good. Clark heard footsteps getting closer, and turned his head, expecting to see Brainy. A tall, muscular man wearing a sleeve-less shirt wasn't what he had expected.

"Hey," The man said. "I was just checking to see if anyone was here. Was going to work out in the other room, but hey, you wanna go?"

"Go? What?" Clark hated thinking right now. Go away.

The man laughed and approached him. "Spar. You wanna spar?"

"A little worn out right now."

"Yeah, I can see that." The man said, laughing. "Maybe some time later, then. I haven't seen you around a lot."

"Joined two weeks ago." Clark explained. "Clark Kent."

"Screen name?"

"Er, Superman."

The man laughed. "Right. I'm Jim Allon. Colossal. Who you here with, Clark?"

"Brainy."

"Ah. The half-robot."

Clark paused. "What?"

"He didn't tell you?" Jim said. He had a small, amused smile on. "Has he even told you about Lyle?"

"A little."

"Brainy and Lyle were in a building on fire a couple years back. Lyle was hurrying to get everyone out, so he wasn't paying too much attention to himself. He was about to trip out of the building, 'cause the wall was torn down by the fire, and so Brainy grabbed him and pulled him back, but _he_ lost his balance and fell out. He had to go into surgery, but the damage was too great—"

Brainy walked in the room. He gave the now-silent Jim and Clark a suspicious look, but didn't ask what they had been talking about. He told Clark to follow him, and they left.

In research period, the lyrics to "10001" were laid flat on the table. A pale light hovered over them.

"The song title could even be a clue." Brainy said, scrutinizing the words on the paper. "A series of numbers could indicate a date, an ID number, a zip code, a social security number."

"How do we know this is something important? It might just be some kid messing around." Clark said.

"People have done this before. Sending messages to cohorts, subliminal messages to the world—"

"If this is a message, it sounds like a message from some guy trapped somewhere." Clark said, pointing at the lines. "'In at the top of the tower', 'I want it back and it's just over there'."

"No, it doesn't suggest someone is trapped. It suggests something he wants is trapped. It may be trapped so that the kidnappers make him do what they want him to do. 'Do this or you'll never see this thing again'."

"How do we know it's a guy?"

"I'm just sticking a pronoun in."

Clark tapped his chin with his finger in thought. "Well, if it's a guy with something held against him so that he'll do something for people, it's probably a girl. He keeps mentioning a 'she'."

"'She said 'run run run,', 'she protects us all in the end', 'she gives you oh so much because you're out of luck'." Brainy whispered to himself. "Yes. A loved one may be trapped. She's kept in the top of a tower."

"What kind of tower?"

"A clock tower. 'Was the bottom of the hour.' Is he at the bottom of the tower? Or is something going to happen at 6:00?" Brainy paused, skimming over the page. "'I'm bringing down on Tuesday, Wednesday I'll pay for it.' Wait a second. 'Bringing back my thumb'. Oh, my god."

Brainy glanced at Clark, and then sighed deeply. "Another bomb. The woman and her child—'She protects her son standing right here'-- reside at the top of the clock tower. Someone—'the owner'—is forcing this man to work—'I'm stuck, but I can walk to work'. He'll be done on Tuesday, and the bomb will go off at 6:00 on Wednesday."

"Today's Tuesday." Clark said.

"Oh, crap." Brainy whispered. "We must stop this now. We're not informed of how big the bomb is. Okay. Let's see. 10001, if it was a zip code, would be around here somewhere. In New York."

"Is there a clock tower in 10001?"

Brainy glanced at him. "Let's find out."

--

Clark was nodding off to sleep in Brainy's car. It was midnight. Clark wanted to go to sleep. That's all he wanted—the only thing he wanted—right now.

"Clark, wake up." Brainy snapped. "You must look around."

Clark whined. "Brainy…!"

"Is that a clock tower?"

Clark sat up and looked out the window. A tall, old structure looked over the city, rooted firmly to the spot. The clock on the head of the building had Roman Numerals instead of numbers.

"Well, it's a tower that has a clock on it." Clark said flatly.

"Let's check it out." Brainy decided. He parked the car to the side of the road and got out. Clark groaned before getting out as well.

The tower wasn't designed for tourists or anyone to walk into it. There wasn't even a door. Brainy took out a grappling hook, and swung it a couple times with his right arm before tossing it up. It caught onto a ledge.

Brainy tested it before nodding at Clark. "You look for the woman and the child. I'll go see to the working man."

Clark nodded and took the grappling hook. He gulped, and then started climbing up. His feet pushed off or steadied his body on the building as his hands climbed and pulled. He didn't look down, but he knew Brainy was still on the ground, watching him and making sure he was safe. Clark slipped down a little bit a couple times (climbing for more than a minute was hard!), but he managed to get to the hook. He struggled to get it out of its caught place. When he succeeded, Clark looked down to see that there was no one below him. Brainy was gone.

Clark took a breath to calm himself down. He swung the grappling hook a couple times with his arm like Brainy had done, and then chucked it up. It shot in the sky, and then fell down. Clark shrieked, wrapped his other arm securely around a pillar, and tightened his hold on the rope. The hook crashed down next to him and pulled Clark toward the edge, but he remained on the ledge. A couple more failed throws later, the hook finally snagged onto a ledge higher than him. Clark pulled on it a little to test it, and then started up. Clark's hands shook as he pulled himself up. He was more nervous this time because what if the hook fell? Brainy had expertly done the other one; this was Clark's first time. He didn't even know what it looked like up there. Even worse, Clark's cell phone vibrated three fourths of the way there. Clark sped up a little, and immediately took out his phone when he tumbled onto the ledge.

"_What_?" Clark snapped.

"Whoa, hey, Clark, didn't mean to wake you up there, buddy." It was Chuck. Of course. "I was watching TV, and The Strokes didn't make that song. '10001'."

"Yeah, I know—wait, you're watching the news?"

"What, you think I just play video games when I use the TV? No, Clark, listen to this—"

Clark heard a little shuffling, and then Julian Casablancas' familiar groan of a voice came. "Our manager doesn't even know what happened. I can't (bleep) believe some kid did this. It's so (bleep) embarrassing and offending, you know, man? It sucks. We're gonna find this (bleep) guy and (bleep) do something about it."

"Wow, he sounds pretty angry." Clark said.

"I can't believe they didn't make it!" Chuck exclaimed. "It sounded like Julian! And The Strokes!"

"Yeah, I know, Bouncy. Listen, I have to go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Go sleep, now go away."

"All right, Clark, see you later."

Clark sighed before swinging the grappling hook around again. Two more trips up, and Clark was facing the clock (12:30, ugh, he wanted to sleep). There was no place to hide anyone. Clark was about to continue to the roof of the tower, when he spotted a red button just to the right of the clock. Clark glanced around before pressing it.

The bricks in the wall shook before pulling in, opening like double doors. Clark stepped in cautiously. Giant cogs and dials shook and churned and screeched all around him. Seconds ticked by, in tune with Clark's heart. It was spooky and loud.

Clark tiptoed in—he was on a wooden floor—and immediately found the hostages to his right. A guard sat in a chair, bored, while a woman and her kid sat cuddled on the floor behind bars. The woman had long, stringy, black hair and the boy had a mess of brown hair and big brown eyes. The lock on the cage just needed a key that the guard probably had. Clark checked out the guard. He was tall and muscled. And had a gun.

Clark pulled out his own gun from its holster on his belt. Brainy taught him how to use it over the past weeks. As fun as it was to engage in hand-to-hand combat the last mission, that was shit scary. The safety of his gun clicking off was drowned out by the other noises in the clock. Clark took careful aim, and then shot.

The woman and the child screamed. The guard's head fell back, blood seeping through the perfect hole in his forehead. Clark fought down the urge to heave, and quickly ran forward.

"It's okay, I'm here to save you." Clark told the shivering people. Clark checked the guard's pockets, found the key, and then let the hostages free.

The woman placed dirty hands on Clark's shoulders. Her voice was shrill and hoarse. "Bless you, thank you so much!"

"No problem. Clark said, starting on his way back to the door. "We should be going, though."

"My husband! We have to save him!"

"My friend—my partner's with him. Don't worry." Clark reassured. The woman and the kid followed him out the door.

One look down to the ground, and Clark had no idea how to get back down. He hooked the grappling hook back on the ledge, and then told the kid to go first. Instead, the woman took the rope and slowly climbed down while Clark made sure the hook was secured onto the ledge. The kid slid easily down to the end of the rope, where his mother took him in her arms. Clark secured the hook again, and then slid down to where the others were. It was easier to go down than climb up.

Once they got to the ground, Clark called Imra.

"Saturn."

"Right, it's Superman. Um, I've got these hostages. What do I do with them?"

"You have hostages?"

"Yeah—no, I don't mean—like, I saved them from being hostaged … up."

"Oh, yeah, I get it. Clark, stop calling me for these things. Call Triplicate, she's the one in charge of transportation and things. I'll give you her number."

Clark called Triplicate and told her of the situation. She said she would send people to take them in.

"I've gotta help my partner, you guys sit tight." Clark told the woman and the child. He ran into the door of the clock tower that he hadn't seen before; Brainy had probably opened up. Again, he was surrounded by cogs and deafening screeches. The floor was stone instead of wooden like upstairs. A couple more steps in, Clark saw another guard in front of another metal cage. A scrawny man sat behind it, twiddling his fingers nervously. Five or six men littered the floor with bullet holes through their bodies. Clark could hear Brainy's and someone else's voice from far away. Clark was trying to decide between getting Brainy and releasing the man, when his eyes landed on the bomb.

It was a timer connected to a car engine. It looked simple, like the ones Brainy had him defuse in practice. Clark wanted to get it, but it was right at the guard's feet. And Clark couldn't shoot him or else the guy interrogating Brainy would hear. Clark bit his lip, trying to figure out a way to get the guard away from the bomb, when the guard approached the cage.

"You'll be dead tomorrow." The guard told the shivering man.

"So will you." The man replied. His voice was just as hoarse as his wife's, but not as high-pitched. It sounded tired—exhausted. "What will you do once you're out of here?"

"Get some sleep, bang some girl, eat pizza. You?"

Clark inched forward. He pressed his finger to his lips when the man in the cage saw him. Clark took one glance at the guard and then swiped the bomb. He brought it back over to his hiding place, and quickly started working on it. It looked like a mess, but it was just the wires Clark had to worry about. He needed scissors, something sharp. Clark glanced around and saw nothing except for cogs and dials and more cogs. Clark sighed, but then brightened. Of course! He shimmied the wires between two giant cogs. It successfully tore up the wires, the blue ones first, then the green, and then the red ones.

The crunching of the bomb was too loud to pass off or ignore. The guard and the man turned sharply at the sound. The guard stepped forward, but Clark came behind him and wacked him across the back of the head with the bomb. Brainy had taught him where to hit someone so they would fall in unconsciousness. Clark whooped when the guard collapsed on the ground, unmoving. And then he shot him.

Clark turned to the man in the cage. The man had a terrific and unexpected grin on his face. He gripped the cage bars with sweaty and thin hands. Oh, my god, he was so thin and tired. They had definitely been starving the guy.

"You made a really cool song, dude." Clark said, feeling around the guard's pockets for the keys.

"Really? Thank you." He sounded so happy. "I didn't know if anyone would catch on."

Clark started at the lock. "Well, yeah, but hey, we caught it. Why'd you choose The Strokes?"

"People have been expecting from them lately." The man said, and then coughed violently.

The lock gave in. The man scrambled out, hugged Clark, and then ran out. Clark opened his mouth to tell him that his wife and kid were out there, but the man was already gone by then. Wow, the things being a hostage did to your head.

Brainy and someone else were still talking in the other room. Grabbing his gun in his belt holster, Clark walked against the wall, following Brainy's voice. The closer he got, the more he recognized words from the conversation. The other person was a man. No surprise there: all the guards had been guys.

"I'm sure Mekt wouldn't approve of this at all." Brainy said.

"What Mekt doesn't know won't hurt him." He sounded so young.

"Mekt knows everything about me. He figures things out and arranges things around and waits until I can get a mission, and then one of his stupid cons try to kidnap me."

"That sounds about right."

"But the cons can never do it. Something always goes wrong."

"I'm not screwing up. I've done everything right."

"Of course you have."

A pause. "What the fuck are you talking about, Querl?"

"See for yourself, you bastard."

As soon as the man's face popped out of the doorway, Clark shot him in the head. He had long, shaggy, brown hair, and had on a loose tie. Clark could assume his face was very pretty if he wasn't lying dead on the floor with a scared-shitless look on his face permanently. Clark peeked into the room to make sure no one else was with Brainy.

Brainy was shirtless with his pants zipper unzipped. He sat in a wooden chair with his hands tied behind him. His blonde hair was messed up. No one else was in the room.

"Hey," Brainy chirped with a smile.

Clark rushed forward. "Brainy, what the hell—"

"What, you've never seen this before?" Brainy joked. His smile vanished. "Get used to it, Clark. Lyle had to."

"Did he get captured, too?" Clark hurried, fiddling with the rope around Brainy's wrists.

"No. I'm prettier than him. There's a knife in my shoe."

Clark carefully took the knife out of the space between Brainy's heel and the canvas of his converse. "How did you—never mind."

Halfway through cutting the rope, Clark said, "Am I pretty?"

Brainy turned his head. "If you get kidnapped, I will personally fuck up whoever _dared_ to kidnap you."

Clark was flattered. Once Brainy's rope was cut, Brainy slipped on his shirt and zipped up his pants. In the room with the men lying dead on the floor, Brainy freaked out. Clark told him that he had taken care of the bomb.

"Good boy." Brainy said. He patted Clark on the shoulder.

They walked out to see a couple ambulances and police cars. Brainy greeted and talked to the paramedics for a minute, and then he walked back to Clark. Clark was leaning against Brainy's black sedan, smiling gently.

Brainy leaned next to him, and took out his cell phone. "Report: Brainiac Five, 1:17 A.M, the clock tower in zip code 10001. Nine men were forcing a man to create a CBU-5B. Superman defused it. All agents are alive, and all nine men are obsolete."

Brainy paused and furrowed his eyebrows. "Mekt. Have you been listening to all my calls?"

Clark turned to Brainy as he continued. "Mekt, would you just quit it and leave me alone? Or better yet, come out _personally_ so you can rape me like you want to, instead of sending these kids who don't even know a Punnet square from a pedigree."

Clark couldn't help but smile. That was a new one. Brainy sighed and turned away. "You're disgusting… He's doing fine. Why don't you come by and see him? Meet me while you're here." Brainy stood listening for a moment, lips pursed, and then he clicked off his palm pilot.

He met Clark's eyes. All anger immediately disappeared from Brainy's eyes. Brainy threw his arms around Clark's neck and kissed him. Clark slipped an arm around Brainy's waist and pulled him closer. Brainy melted against him, pressing kisses, pulling his lips, licking at his tongue. Clark had never had such hot kisses before Brainy had come along.

Unfortunately, Brainy always ended it before it could turn into anything. Brainy pulled back, wiped his lips on Clark's jaw, and then disappeared into the car. Clark sighed and climbed in after Brainy. A third of the way to Clark's apartment, Brainy's cell phone rang. Brainy struggled to get it out of his pocket, and it finally fell to the ground. Clark picked it up.

"Answer it, please." Brainy said, keeping his eyes on the road.

Clark saw who it was, but answered it. "What the hell happened, Brainy?" Lightning. It was Garth.

"Um, Brainy's driving right now."

"Who's this? Who are you?"

"Oh, it's …" Clark swallowed. Garth hated his screen name. "Superman."

"Oh. Right. Brainy's pet. Well, who was behind the song? Who wrote it?"

"Um, I don't know his name. The guy—" Clark pulled away and asked, "Brainy did you know who the guy in the cage was?"

"No."

"Yeah, Lightning, we don't know who it was. But the guy—the boss or whatever—his name was Mekt."

"Mekt? Shit, I should have known."

"Who is this guy? How big is he? Does he usually mess around with us?"

"He's my damn brother, that's who he is."

"He—what?"

"We turned different paths when the time came."

"Well, yeah, pretty different paths."

Garth snapped, "Don't you start that cheeky, sarcastic—never mind. It's late. You and Brainy are off tomorrow. Over and out."

"Um—" But Garth had already hung up. Clark put down the phone and swallowed. Garth was scary. He turned to Brainy and said, "We're off work tomorrow."

"Oh? Who was it? Rokk?"

"Garth. Did you know Mekt was his brother?"

"Yes. It's a shame, isn't it?"

"A shame? That freaking sucks! I mean, it's bad enough if it's your partner, but—your _brother_. Jesus."

A partner. Clark scrutinized Brainy's perfect face. Jim had said something about Brainy being a robot. Clark recalled the feel of his face when Clark kissed him: it was a bit harder than others' he had kissed, but—_robot_? Was that even possible? Clark didn't know if this was the right time to ask (was there a right time to ask if your friend was a robot?). He just scooted down lower in his seat, and closed his eyes.

--

"Can I come in?"

Clark glanced at Brainy, while unlocking the door to his apartment. Brainy didn't usually come in. Clark shrugged and said, "Um, sure."

The door opened. Clark walked in, and started toward the refrigerator. "You want something to drink?"

Brainy smiled. "You're tired, aren't you?"

"Exhausted. Wait, you're the one who practically got _raped--_"

"_Clark_." Brainy pressed, glaring at him. "Get some sleep. I'll get something myself."

"All right." Clark mumbled. He walked over to his room, took off his shirt, and collapsed on the bed. Not long after, Brainy came into the room. He dropped onto the bed, and then snuggled up next to Clark.

--

A/N:

The good thing about fanfics is that I don't even have to make up my own songs. 10001 was actually Sagganuts by, you guessed it, The Strokes. But it was one of their old songs that never got cleaned up and put onto an album. I really like it, though. (partly because Nick's singing, "Run run run!" and he never sings in their songs) Look it up on YouTube. Here are the complete lyrics:

In at the top of the tower  
Was the bottom of the hour  
I want it back and its just over there  
Knowing something else  
I reacted to the owner  
The only thing I'd seen with my eyes  
She said

Run Run Run!!  
As fast as you can run or you walk  
They give you all so much because your outta luck  
Run run run!!  
Well don't you wanna know I am yours?

I'm goin on my way yeah  
I'm tired of all the ends  
All the ends  
And she protects us all in the end  
And I said  
I'm stuck, but I can walk to work

I'm bringin down on Tuesday  
Wednesday, I pay for it  
I gave it up to what I said  
Leave me in peace  
He said

Run Run Run!!  
As fast as you can run or you can walk  
She give you oh so much because your outta luck  
Run Run Run!!  
But I said that I was yours

I'm tired all the ends  
All the ends  
Bringing back to my thumb  
When I said I was right  
But she protects her son standing right there  
On the edge  
And now its tough  
But I go out to work


	4. Mission: Mosquito

Ignore this

Clark woke up to see Brainy on the edge of his bed, his laptop on his lap. Clark smiled and wanted to watch Brainy a bit while Brainy didn't know he was awake, but Brainy turned around. Brainy knew everything.

Brainy smiled and ran a hand through Clark's hair. "Good morning, Superman."

Clark groaned, but smiled. He sat up a bit, shifting closer to Brainy. "What are you doing here?"

"You informed me that we had today off. I reasoned I could be with you."

Clark glanced at the clock on his night stand. "I still have to go to work." Clark got out of bed, rubbing his hair tiredly. "Do you work, Brainy?"

"You're aware of where I work." Brainy said. He turned back to his laptop.

"Well, yeah, but isn't there somewhere else?" At no response from Brainy, Clark said, "You work at the CIA full-time?"

"Of course."

Clark pulled on a shirt. "What are you gonna do all day, then? You're not gonna be on that laptop the whole time, are you?"

"I'll find something to occupy myself."

"You got any family to visit?"

Brainy scoffed. "Family. Right."

Clark glanced at Brainy. He wanted to ask, but he really had to get ready for work. When Clark left his apartment, Brainy was still on his laptop.

--

Clark zipped around the store, delivering packages from incoming trucks, replacing products on shelves, helping customers. Chuck worked cashier, and Salu developed photos. It was a particularly busy day today. And Clark was still sleepy from his mission the night before.

Salu gave them both popsicles sometime during the day when only a few customers were around.

"Clark, you okay? You look a bit tired." Salu said.

"Yeah, I didn't get much sleep last night."

Chuck explained, "He was too disappointed about the fake Strokes song."

"Oh, yeah. Bummer, huh?" Salu said.

Clark nodded, sucking on his Popsicle. Chuck straightened up when the sliding doors opened, and then said, "Hey, look who it is."

Clark turned around, and blinked in surprise. A man—college student—walked in. He had dark hair like Clark, but it was a bit messier and longer. His blue eyes were lighter but sharper than Clark's. The man spotted Clark, and walked over with a grin.

"Hey, Clark, what's going on, man?"

"Michael!" Clark exclaimed. He took Michael's extended hand. "What are you doing here?"

"What, I can't say hi to my cousin?" Michael laughed. "What's up, Chuck? Salu?"

"We're doing okay." Salu answered, smiling. "How's college?"

"It's cool. Listen, can I borrow Clark for a minute?"

"Go ahead." Salu said nodding.

It had been a couple months since Clark had last seen Michael. He looked like he was getting along well. Michael had always been the more focused and quick-minded of the two. A natural businessman.

"I got a job." Michael explained once they sat down at a safe with their drinks.

Clark smiled. "That's great, Michael! Where?"

"This new technology company called Radio Artist. I know, it sounds like band name or something, but it's pretty cool. Pays well, too. I'm working on a project with a couple other kids—we're making this audio thing that will make it so adults can hear the mosquito ring. You know?"

"The mosquito—like, the really high-pitched noise that only kids can hear?'

"Yeah, exactly. We're trying to make this gadget that'll make grown-ups hear it, too."

"Well, that's no fun for the kids calling each other in class."

"Yeah, it's too bad. And then another group is making a mosquito that only adults can hear."

Clark laughed. "Wow. They really want to be in charge, don't they?"

"Hey, it wasn't my idea."

Clark sipped his coffee. "Well, how's the project going?"

"It's a pretty complicated process. And messed-up idea." Michael rubbed his eye wearily. "I don't even think it's possible."

"Well, you'll get it." Clark reassured. "If anyone can make a super-hearing gizmo, it's my little cousin."

--

Chuck and Salu forced Clark to go out to a bar that night. Clark missed his sleep dearly, but he did want to catch up with his friends. The bar was filled with too many noises and people for Clark to sleep, so he just gave up and drank with his friends. 30 minutes in, Chuck was badly drunk and doing something embarrassing in front of a table full of strangers, and Salu was flirting with some boy in the corner. Clark was just a little drunk; he had tried to keep count of how many he drank. He didn't want to be so outrageously drunk that his little secret about being a secret agent slipped out.

Clark glanced up and spotted a blonde boy across the counter. The boy was occupied by another boy, light-brown-haired, taller and leaner, prettier and flirtier. Clark squinted and realized the blonde looked a lot like Brainy. He had the same button nose and small chin, perfectly-shaped ears, thin but pouty lips.

Then he realized it _was_ Brainy. Brainy with another guy! Fuck! Clark admitted the guy was a lot sexier than Clark, but that wasn't a reason to blow Clark off like that! Hadn't Brainy said something about Clark being his?

Brainy laughed at something the guy said. The guy wrapped an arm around Brainy's shoulders and leaned down to brush his nose in Brainy's hair. Clark pursed his lips, but he felt more sick than angry. Brainy reached for a beer, and ended knocking it over.

"Shit!" Brainy exclaimed. The beer spilled over Brainy's hand and dripped onto his legs. Brainy froze for a second, and then gave out fierce, little spasms. His eyes rolled back into his head as his body shook. Clark was too shocked to say or do anything. A tiny spark shot out from Brainy's elbow.

"When did we say we were going, again?" Salu was suddenly in front of Clark. A goofy grin was on her face. The guy she had been flirting with was still in the corner, waiting.

Clark didn't say anything. He had his eyes on Brainy, who seemed perfectly fine now. Salu followed his gaze. Clark really could care less; he felt betrayed. Salu and Clark watched as the boy lead Brainy out of the bar with a protective arm around Brainy's shoulders.

Salu looked back at Clark. Clark avoided her gaze and just took another shot of his beer. "Who was that? Did you know him?"

"Which one?"

"Either one. Did you know either of them? Shit, the taller guy was hot!"

Clark scoffed. "Yeah, hot, all right. But can he put up in a good fight?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You want to fight him? Over that little blonde nerd?"

Clark snapped, "He's more than a 'little blonde nerd'!"

Salu blinked. "Shit, Clark, I didn't know—sorry."

Clark shook his head and drank from his beer. "It's okay. No one knows."

Salu stayed quiet, and then sat down next to Clark. "You gonna get him back?"

"I don't—I--" Clark swallowed and sighed. He tried to make sense of everything in his head. "I don't know."

Salu was too drunk to say anything encouraging, so she settled for patting him on the back. Chuck came running in from the bathroom, shook Clark by the shoulders while screaming gibberish, and then collapsed at Clark's feet. Clark sighed and took another swig.

--

The next day, Clark really didn't want to go to work. Not work at Please; he was fine with that. But work at the CIA. Clark wasn't in the mood to run around a lot at sparring, to learn how to detect a dangerous amount of carbon monoxide in the air, to change money from one bank account to the next, but most importantly, _fuck_, to see Brainy. He didn't want to see Brainy, that fucking cheater bastard who told Clark that _he_ was the only one Brainy fucking liked, when he went off to see some other sexy damn whore behind Clark's fucking back.

"Wow, that's a lot of swears." Clark mumbled. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed.

13 hours later, Clark came home to see Brainy sitting on the couch with his laptop, as usual. Brainy glanced up and smiled. Clark didn't return it, and just left to his room to change.

The car ride to headquarters was silent. Clark pursed his lips and just looked out the window.

"Sorry about the rush, but there's another mission for you two." Garth started. He and Rokk had beckoned them in. "Some weird sonic pulses have been reported near this address." He pointed to a sheet of paper on his desk that Brainy took. "We want you to check it out."

As soon as they closed the door, Brainy turned Clark around.

"Okay, what's going on?" Brainy blurted, staring down Clark.

"Nothing!" Clark said lightly, even though he wanted to throttle Brainy.

"Clark," Brainy pressed, "I can recognize when you're lying. Or not telling the whole truth."

Clark gave in. "Who was that fucker you were with last night?"

"What?"

"You heard me. At the bar."

"You were present?"

"Of course I was there. With Salu and Chuck."

Brainy closed his eyes. "Oh, no, one of them saw me, didn't they? And you informed them about me?"

"This isn't about me, Brainy—"

"Of course it concerns you! If they find out, we're all busted!"

"Who _was_ that guy, Brainy?"

Brainy sighed. "Just a friend. He's just a friend."

"What's his name?"

"Adam."

"Does he work here?"

"No. Clark, will you quit it? I can't have friends?"

"Of course you can have friends! He just wasn't acting very friendly. He was _more_ than friendly."

"Adam's always like that."

"Well, did he even know about me?"

"I try to keep my work out of my conversations with him."

"Oh, so I'm just _work_ now?"

"This is ridiculous." Brainy scoffed, shaking his head. People were staring. "I can't spar with you. Get Cam or someone. We're still doing the mission together, though, whether we like it or not."

"Fine." Clark spat. He moved to the elevator while Brainy crawled up in his office. Like the loser he was. Ugh.

Clark's wild emotions resulted in a rather stupid fight. His fists and legs lunged everywhere with all his weight. He couldn't look anywhere without seeing Brainy: Brainy laughing with Adam, Brainy smiling with Adam, Brainy touching Adam. Or Brainy being electrocuted. What was that about, anyway? Was what Jim said about Brainy being a half-robot true? It couldn't be.

"Whoa, slow down, Clark!"

Clark blinked. He had been pounded Cam's crossed arms above Cam's head. Clark retreated his arms and let them hang loosely by his side.

Cam gave him a suspicious look. "Is everything all right?"

Clark swallowed and averted his eyes. He sighed and rubbed his hands on his face. "Brainy's being such a … dick."

Cam scoffed. "Well. What can you expect from him? It was always his partner who was the nice one."

"Does everyone know about Lyle?" Clark exclaimed.

"Well, they were always together." Cam shrugged. "They were partners."

"Tell me more about him. About Lyle." Clark demanded.

Cam crossed his arms. "They were partners." He said again. "Rokk brought Lyle in about two years ago. Seemed like a pretty nice guy. Harmless, really. But when you put him in front of a computer, he was … godly. And he was a pretty decent fighter, too, in hand-to-hand combat and with guns."

Clark said nothing as Cam continued, "Brainy didn't really like him a lot in the beginning. He thought Lyle was competition, even though they were supposed to work together. Lyle tried to get Brainy to let it go, but I think that just made Brainy angrier. After a couple missions, Brainy finally chilled out and accepted Lyle. They were amazing, the two of them. Brainy's already pretty much good at everything, but he lacked … warmth. Lyle was warmth for the two of them. He was the first one to get Brainy to laugh around here."

Cam sighed. "And then he died. A year after he came, a year before now. I'm sure there are lots of variations of the story, but I heard he just got shot."

"What about Brainy being a robot? Doesn't that have something to do with Lyle?"

"Yeah, I don't know if that's true. But—again, this is just what I heard—but Brainy was so sad about Lyle being dead, that he tried jumping off a building. Somehow, he managed to get through it, but his face was so screwed up that he needed to get some … adjustments. They wanted to do some normal surgery and plastic surgery, but Brainy was like, 'No, that doesn't make sense. Do this and this. And use these robot parts I made.'"

"It's just his face?"

"I don't know. 'Half-robot' means half of your whole body, I'm guessing. But still, that's a kind-of weird thought. He has been sharper and faster after Lyle died, though."

Cam blinked and grinned. "Well? Think you can fight now? Got it all out of your system?"

Clark laughed and resumed the spar. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about Brainy.

--

In the research hour, Clark couldn't help feeling a little uneasy. After what Cam had told him, Clark felt bad for Brainy. Brainy had been through so much more emotional toil than Clark had ever gone through. Last night was nothing compared to that long year Brainy had to spend without Lyle.

"Hey, Brainy," Clark blurted.

Brainy said nothing and just continued scrolling down the webpage he was looking at on his laptop.

Clark continued, "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have accused you of anything."

Brainy glanced up.

Clark swallowed. "He was—Adam was just a—a fr—" But was he? Brainy smirked a bit at Clark's uncertainty. Finally he just said, "Was he just a friend?"

Brainy sighed. "Of course he was just a friend, Clark. No one could replace you."

But could Clark replace someone else? Replace Lyle? Brainy saw Clark's hesitation, but just turned back to his laptop. A few minutes later, Brainy chirped, "It's Radio Artist. The address where the sonic pulses are home to."

"Radio Artist? The new tech company?" Clark said cautiously.

"Yes. The address is their base."

Clark straightened in his chair. "No, no. I know what the pulses are, then. They're experimenting for this new product they're working on."

"How are you aware of that?"

"My cousin works there. He's working on the project. It's, like, this mosquito that older kids can hear."

Brainy typed for a second. "Still, the frequency of the waves is too harsh for a mosquito. A mosquito that older people are able to hear? I suppose then, that it must be lower in frequency. Jesus, the velocity of these waves could turn someone deaf!"

"Oh, well, they're not trying to do that."

Brainy looked at Clark. "Your cousin's not trying to do that. Radio Artist might be. We have to take a look at this instrument ourselves."

"What, sneak in?"

Brainy glanced up at a clock on the wall. "Tomorrow. We'll drive directly there when you arrive home."

--

Salu inched in next to Clark while he slid some energy drinks into the refrigerated shelves. She whispered, "So how're things with your guy?"

Clark jumped, dropping some drinks. He hadn't even seen Salu. He gathered up the drinks, and said, "Things are good, things are good."

"Patch things up?"

"Yeah—listen, Salu, could you not tell Chuck about that?"

"Oh? Does Bouncy know him?"

"No, no, thank god he doesn't. It's just—it's sort of a secret." Clark mumbled, glancing at Salu.

Salu looked surprised that Chuck didn't know already. But she smiled. "No worries, Clark."

--

The Radio Artist building was surprisingly big for a developing company. It was cylindrical and decorated with twenty windows every story. Clark and Brainy looked up at it from Brainy's car in the parking lot.

Clark swallowed. "I hope Michael's not in there."

"Nobody should reside in the building at this late hour." Brainy reassured. "And if they are, we can easily slip past them. Let's go."

They headed in, cracking the lock at the front door. Brainy froze as soon as they entered; Clark followed suit. Brainy took out his phone and texted something to someone. The red lights of the cameras around them died. Brainy rushed straight in to the elevators.

"How did you do that?" Clark said.

"Lou's in charge of transportation, but she handles pretty much anything computer-related that she can manage from headquarters." Brainy not-quite explained, "She's Rokk's and Garth's secretary, but she's also an eye-in-the-sky, if you know what I mean."

"So she shut off the cameras?" Clark clarified. Brainy nodded. "Wait a second, I thought Triplicate was in charge of transportation."

Brainy just stared at Clark. Clark blinked. "Oh. Right. Lou is Triplicate."

They got out at the tenth floor. The lab was bathed in a white glow from the lights. The cameras were already shut off.

Brainy immediately sat down at a computer. Clark walked around, examining the machines and prototypes. Complex formulas were harshly scribbled onto the marker board. In big letters across the top of the board, it said, "Project Mosquito Hearing Aid: Completed."

Clark slipped on his latex gloves, and then picked up the nearest prototype. It was the size of a softball, but _man_, it was heavy. Clark had worked robotics in high school, but he couldn't recognize any of the chips in the device.

"Project Presbycusis." Brainy read out loud. "I'm inferring that's from the original concept of the mosquito. Oh, my god, the hertz for this is … unbelievable. Catastrophic. This is insane; they can't be trying to make anyone hear anything."

Clark sought out his cousin's part of the lab. A picture of Michael and his girlfriend were taped on the side of a computer. Clark booted up the computer, and opened up an important-looking document on the desktop. It was a chart, labeling everything to make this new mosquito on one side, and everything their boss told them to do on the other side. The two rarely matched with each other. Nothing seemed to work. At the bottom of the page, Michael had typed, "OMFG Ms. Ulnoor doesn't know shit about mechanics or science."

"Clark, I found some secret files." Brainy called out. "Project Presbycusis' real intent isn't for older people to hear the mosquito. It's to make them go deaf for a second—thirty seconds, specifically. This isn't right."

"Why would they want that?" Clark said, approaching Brainy.

"To flush out competition. Three of these sound bombs will make employees at other companies go crazy. Short-term memory-loss, possible blindness, maybe some physical damage because of this truculent sonic wave. Definitely deafness, though."

"That sounds really bad."

"We must shut it down." Brainy said, typing madly on the keyboard. "The whole project."

"Wait a second—Brainy, these are people's _jobs_ we're talking about." Clark said. Michael's distraught face popped up in his mind. "We can't just shut it down."

"Clark, this is a dangerous and unauthorized weapon. We must shut it down."

"Well then, give them other jobs. Transfer them, whatever." Clark pleaded.

Brainy looked at him for a second, and then sighed and turned back to the screen. "That's exactly what Lyle would have said."

Clark couldn't help blurting out, "I'm not Lyle, Brainy! I'm Clark Kent! I'm not gonna be some replacement of a partner or a boyfriend you had!"

Clark had never seen such hurt on anyone's face before in his life. Not even from any of the girls of which he had broken their hearts. Brainy seemed on the verge of tears, and then suddenly he was angry.

"I know you're not a fucking replacement! You could never match Lyle's skill or strength or intelligence of fucking kindness! You're just some guy who liked me for my looks—_again_ with my fucking looks, like every other guy I try to kill! Lyle knew there was something more to me—he saw me for who I am—He—He—"

Brainy ran away, furiously wiping his tears. Clark felt empty and so, oh god, so fucking guilty. He jumped on Brainy for something that wasn't Brainy's fault twice in the past couple days. Why did Clark have to ruin everything? Clark sighed harshly and messed up his hair. The computer was still there, waiting to be used. The task still had to be completed.

Clark sat down in front of the computer. He deleted all the files of the project, completely wiped out any evidence of its existence. This computer was wired up to all the other computers. Still, Clark checked the others to make sure the project had successfully died. Yes. It had. Mission completed.

Almost. The non-computer evidence was all still intact: all the charts and prototypes and pieces of machines. How would he get rid of all this crap?

Clark started building a bomb.

--

Brainy was sitting in the corner of the bathroom, his legs curled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. Clark felt even more terrible at seeing how broken Brainy looked. Brainy glanced up and glared at him through his bangs. Clark's heart beat in his chest like a hammer: every punch to his rib cage was like a reminder of what he did to Brainy, of what he said; pound, pound, pound, guilty, guilty, guilty.

"Brainy, I…" Clark whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

Brainy looked away, to the wall next to him. Clark walked over and sat next to him. Brainy didn't move, barely breathed. And then finally, he croaked, "I tried so hard to forget him. After he died." Brainy barked a laugh. "God, the way he died. It was unfair. It was my fault—it was all my fault."

Clark asked softly, "What happened, Brainy?"

Brainy swallowed. "I was shooting at a high-ranked assassin while Lyle was getting all the civilians away. The building was burning terribly. You've seen me fight. I'm even better with a gun. I ... dance. I feel like I've become lighter and I just jump and flip and dodge every bullet. I'm unstoppable. But ... it got the best of me. I was tumbling to dodge one of the bullets, and I would've fallen through the broken window, if Lyle hadn't spotted me and shoved me away. He got hit by a bullet. He fell out the window and I jumped after him. My head and the rest of my body suffered severe injuries, but I didn't care. Lyle ... Lyle died saving me. It was useless to jump out and try to save him, for he had already died from the bullet."

Brainy scoffed and pressed the heel of his hand against the bridge of his nose. "He's gone. Lyle's gone. It took me so long to convince myself to let it go."

Brainy looked at Clark. The anger was completely wiped away. All that remained was helplessness. This lost, vulnerable Brainy scared Clark. Brainy continued, "And then you came. And you were … different. You had no—haha, no fucking clue what you were doing. It was pure innocence, and it … I fell for it. It was like Lyle's, but it was so far from it. Clark, I know who you are. I like you."

Clark nodded. He gently pried off the other hand from wrapped around Brainy's knee, and slipped his fingers in Brainy's. Brainy watched their intertwined fingers.

"I built a bomb." Clark said. He knew it didn't fit the mood, but he continued, "It's set to go off in about five minutes."

"We must kill the boss."

"Kill her?"

Brainy nodded. "I'm presuming you deleted all the evidence, so now we can't put her in prison. With Ulnoor still alive, the project might rebirth."

Clark understood. "But—do you know where she lives?"

"I'll find out." Brainy looked up from watching their hands. "We may congregate after I kill her. Adam's probably up for a drink. You two should meet. Properly."

Clark pushed his lips to the side. "I don't know, Brainy."

"He's really a nice guy."

Brainy's eager face was enough for Clark to give in. Clark sighed and said, "All right."

Brainy grinned. "Excellent. The bar you saw us in. Meet me there in an hour."

--

Clark already had two drinks when Brainy came. He plopped down next to Clark and immediately ordered a beer.

"How'd it go?" Clark asked.

"Clean. Perfect. I used a silencer, don't worry. Everything's fine." Brainy said grinning.

Adam came in and wrapped an arm around Brainy's shoulders. Clark couldn't help the surge of hatred. Brainy saw it, laughed, and brushed off Adam's arm.

"Adam, this is Clark." Brainy introduced.

Adam raised two fingers and his thumb in greeting. He grinned and said, "Hey, sexy. What you got making?"

"What?"

Brainy laughed and whispered in Clark's ear, "I told you he always acts this way."

As the night went on, Clark decided Adam really wasn't that bad. He immediately caught on that Brainy and Clark were together, and stopped flirting. He and Brainy had met in college: Adam was 4 years older than Brainy. Adam was incredibly smart, but was more interested in music and drugs than computers. Eventually, Brainy left to the bathroom, which left Adam alone with Clark.

Adam grinned. "So've you guys had sex yet?"

"Um, no." Clark mumbled. He hid his ashamedness by taking a swig from his beer.

"You should totally hit that thing, man." Adam nodded. "Querl's a master at the art of fucking. Knows exactly which places to touch. And ever since he got those robot parts, he's been so much better."

"So he is a robot?"

"You haven't _seen_ it?" Adam blurted-- shouted, almost. "Get him naked—_shirtless_, even, and compare the sides of his body. One's normal, and the other's harder, sturdier, _shinier_. I can't remember the last time he and I fucked around in bed, but I couldn't stop touching him. The machine part makes him irresistible—"

This was just too much. Clark shouted, "Brainy's _mine,_ and you won't lay a finger on him while he's with me!"

Several heads turned. Adam blinked. "'Brainy'?"

"Er, I mean—"

"Is that your little nick name for him? Or pet name?" Adam poked, grinning.

Clark didn't say anything for the rest of the night.

--

Clark wasn't surprised when Michael scrambled into the store the next day.

"Clark! Clark!" He panted, slapping his hands on the cashier counter of which Clark was behind.

"What?"

"The whole lab was bombed last night!"

"What?"

"My boss was shot, too!"

"What? Why?"

Michael waved his arms animatedly in the air. "I have no idea! It makes absolutely no sense! Everyone got transferred to a new project, so we're all okay, though. But still--! We were sabotaged!"

"Oh, my god!"

Still, Clark couldn't help cracking out a smile. It was funny to see Michael so worked up: he was usually very collected. Michael spotted the smile and glared suspiciously. "You think I'm making this up, don't you?"

Clark laughed. "No, no, of course not!"

"Well, look at this!" Michael said. He took out a newspaper from his backpack and slapped it down in front of Clark. Everything Michael had said was in an article on the business section. The cameras hadn't seen anything. Nobody knew who the people who did it were. But one of the boss's neighbors had seen the murderer. Police said they found a suspect, and he was being held in custody at this very minute. The suspect was in his late teens or early twenties, had blonde hair, and was found wearing a green shirt—

"Oh, fuck." Clark whispered.

"See, I told you it was true!" Michael exclaimed.

Clark swallowed.

--

A/N:

Really fucking liked this chapter. I don't know why. I think I just liked the part where Brainy's talking in the bathroom. Um, Michael, Mon-El…? Or you can ignore that and think he's an OC. Oh, and Adam isn't a Legion member. He's a (cough cough) OC (cough cough). Wish I could've gone deeper into Adam. He was fun.


	5. Mission: Girl

Staying in the store that day was torture. Clark couldn't stop thinking about Brainy in some police interrogation room—yes, he knew it was the police, and they and the CIA should be working together, but how would Brainy explain to the police that they _had_ to kill the boss of Radio Artist? There was no evidence of Ulnoor's experiment, and it wasn't part of the mission directions, so Garth and Rokk couldn't cover up for Brainy. Clark needed to leave the store and _find_ Brainy.

As soon as the clock hit 8:00, Clark tore off his store clothes and sprinted out of there. He told the cabbie to take him to the nearest police station. He called Lou.

"Superman, this is Triplicate."

"I'm gonna be late for work today." Clark explained.

"Saving Brainiac Five from the police?"

Clark paused.

Lou continued, "Cosmo is over there right now, trying to bail him out."

"Is he gonna be okay?"

"I've been looking at the police station cameras, and it looks like it's going okay. Cosmo's trying his best to convince the chief that Brainiac Five's the best agent here, and that he would never do anything without good reason."

"All right." Clark sighed. "So I don't need to get over there?"

"Everything's under control, Superman. Don't worry."

Clark swallowed and just hoped it was as Lou said. "Okay, then. Wait, stay on the line for a bit--" Clark climbed out of the cab after paying a stupid fare that got him nowhere. "I need a ride to work."

"Saturn's on it. Over and out."

Lou hung up. Clark wondered if he should've stayed in the cab to get over to his place, but sighed and walked.

-------------------

"Clark, you don't need to worry so much." Imra reassured in the car.

Clark was just as jittery as he was in the store. He bit his lip and ran a nervous hand through his hair. His legs bounced. He looked out his window and prayed everything was fine. Once they got to headquarters, Clark took careful and cautious steps over to Brainy's office. His heart was beating erratically, and his mind was everywhere.

_Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay._

Brainy sat in his swivel chair, staring at his laptop screen. He looked up and smiled at Clark.

"Oh, thank god." Clark sighed.

Brainy's smile widened. "You weren't worried about me, were you?"

Of course he was. Clark wanted to go over there and just give him a giant hug and kiss him everywhere. Instead, Clark wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and said, "No. How'd it go?"

"Rokk was upset that I didn't check with him first about killing Ulnoor." Brainy said, "But he saw the reason and defended me. The chief was impassive, but he finally believed us. I just feel foolish for letting that neighbor see me."

Clark sighed and smiled. The rest of the day went by, uneventful.

-----------------------

Clark paused when he walked into the back room of the store. A woman struggled to get the store T-shirt down on her head. Clark walked over and pulled on the edges of the shirt. Her head popped out of the T-shirt hole. Clark saw miles of blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and plump lips. Clark blinked.

"Thank you," The girl said. She looked about the same age as Clark.

"No problem," Clark replied. "I'm guessing you're new here? Who hired you?"

"Salu. I'm Linda Lee Danvers." The girl said, extending a hand.

Clark took it and said, "Clark Kent. Hope you like it here. It's a pretty easy job, anyway."

"I heard. I'm happy to take a break from my other job." Linda laughed. "It wasn't much of a job, actually. I painted."

Clark sucked in his breath. "Ooh. I heard that business was tough."

"Yeah. Didn't much get me anywhere." Salu shrugged. "It was fun, though. I'll just work where I know I'm gonna get money. And where I know there are nice people."

Linda smiled. It was brilliant, radiating light and kindness, stretching from one ear to the other and showing off perfect teeth. Clark smiled back, but immediately felt out-of-place; he knew his smile wasn't half as good as Linda's.

Chuck came in. He gave a low whistle when he saw Linda, and stared at her breasts. "_You're_ the chick Shrinking Violet hired? Dang, I have to give the girl props!"

Linda's smile vanished. "I'm more than just my boobs, you bastard."

She walked out. Chuck gave Clark a sheepish look. Clark smiled and rolled his eyes.

An hour later, Clark was unlocking the MP3 cabinet when he caught sight of Chuck approaching Linda. Linda was checking off balances and receipts behind the counter.

"Hey, Linda—"

"Go away." Linda snapped.

"Listen, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to judge you by your boobs."

Linda said nothing and just glanced between the store checkbook and the receipt. Chuck continued, "Let me take you out to dinner. Make it up to you."

"Make it up to me by asking me out?"

"Yeah. I mean—I don't know. It's a free meal."

Linda looked at Chuck out of the corner of her eye, as if contemplating whether a free meal would be worth spending time with Chuck. Finally she said, "Sure. Why not. You think Salu and Clark would let us off?"

"I'll make sure of it." Chuck said, and then disappeared to find Salu.

----------------

Clark and Brainy sat in his office, both with their laptops. Brainy had set up a course of bugs and viruses that Clark struggled to get through. Every time he shot down one virus, five more appeared. Clark finally gave in and just dropped a 122a2b bomb, which wiped everyone out, including him.

Brainy glanced up from his laptop. "You gave up."

"Brainy, it was—"

"No, it wasn't. It wasn't impossible." Brainy interrupted. "A Nudgemania download would have worked, and you wouldn't have gotten shut out of the system."

"A Nudge, darn, I forgot."

Brainy turned back to his laptop. "You still have lots to learn, Clark."

Clark sighed. Of course he did. Even if he did get into the CIA by hacking into their site, Clark was better at fighting in hand-to-hand/gun fights than in computer wars. But he was learning from the great _Brainiac Five_, so it would be no time before he was superb in both areas. Right?

"Brainiac Four trained you, right?" Clark asked.

"That's correct." Brainy glanced up from his laptop again. He had a suspicious look in his eye, like he was wondering why Clark would bring that up.

Clark continued, "How long did he train you?"

"I worked under him for a year, and then I was let go as an independent."

"Did Brainiac Three train Brainiac Four?"

"Yes. And the same with all the others."

"Didn't you say one of them was a girl?" Clark said.

"Yes."

"Which one?"

"Brainiac Three—Clark, why are you asking?"

Clark shrugged. "What, I can't get information on my partner's history?"

Brainy sighed and turned back to his laptop. "That's not my history."

"Well then, what is your history?" Clark said, leaning in eagerly.

"That's classified information."

"Oh, come on, Brainy!" Clark whined. He grinned at Brainy. "Tell me something about you. You have any brothers and sisters?"

"I have no family."

Clark's smile fell. "They're all dead?"

"They're dead to me." Brainy's words dripped with venom.

"What happened?" Clark said, frowning.

"That's really not your concern."

"Are you adopted?"

"It's none of your b--"

"Did they abandon you?"

"_Clark!_" Brainy snapped. His glare was lethal. "Drop it, okay? It's not important information, and you don't need it to continue working with me. We're fine the way we are. I don't need any damn history."

Clark huffed. He knew he was getting in a touchy area of Brainy's life, but Brainy seemed to know everything about Clark. Why couldn't Clark know the same about Brainy?

----------------------

When Clark came home, he was startled at the sight of Linda Lee Danvers on his couch, watching TV with a cup of coffee. She looked up when Clark walked in, and then nodded to the door.

"Who's he?" She said.

"Who's who?" Clark looked around. No one else was in the room except for him and Linda. "What are you doing here?"

"The guy that drove you home."

"None of your business. How did you get in my apartment?"

"Even if it's not any of my business, I think it is your friends'." Linda said, sitting up. "Because according to Chuck, you're single."

Clark was baffled. "He's just a friend! Why aren't you answering any of my questions?"

"And the fact that you denied telling me your relationship status the first time means that you're _not_ just friends." She took a sip of her coffee. "And also, I saw you give him a kiss before you left his car."

"That was just a friendly kiss."

"Friendly kiss, my ass!" Linda snapped. She stood up and approached Clark. "Listen, Clark, I like you. And you're going on a date with me."

"Like hell I am."

"Do you want your friends to know about that guy?" Linda said, eyeing Clark.

Clark froze. Brainy hadn't liked it when Clark told Salu about him. He would like it even less if Chuck knew, especially since Chuck had a big mouth.

"All right." Clark sighed. "But Chuck won't be happy about this."

"I've already talked to him." Linda said, smiling. She tapped Clark's lips with her index finger. "See you later, Clark."

And she left. Clark sighed again.

------------------

Chuck hadn't really been okay with it. The next day, Chuck pleaded Clark to let him have Linda. Clark tried to let him know that it was just a date, and Clark wasn't really interested in her.

"Then why the hell are you going on a date?" Chuck squealed.

"Linda asked me, all right?" Clark explained. "And she was being really forceful. There was no way out, buddy."

Chuck huffed. Clark punched him lightly on the shoulder with a grin to show that the whole date really did mean nothing.

---------------

Clark couldn't help thinking that he hadn't even gone on a proper date with Brainy while he was at the restaurant with Linda. He slowly chewed the chicken in his mouth and pictured Brainy sitting opposite from him instead of this blonde girl. He would have inspected the food—scanned it with his robot food radar, if he had one. Clark had never seen Brainy eat. Maybe he didn't eat: it could screw with his robot half.

Linda was a very polite eater, like how most girls were on first dates. Her hair was put up in a clampy hair thing (Clark never figured out what it was called), but some bangs still fell across her eyes. Clark had to admit she was really pretty. If Clark didn't already have Brainy, he might have had a go at Linda.

"So who was that boy in the car?" Linda asked.

Clark looked at his food. "Not talking about him."

"Oh, come on, why not?" Linda pursued, "It's obvious you guys have something. Just give me a name."

"Just a name? Tom."

"Not _any_ name, you impossible boy. What's his name?"

"You can call him Tom." Clark said, and then took a bit out of his sandwich.

Linda pursed her lips. "Okay, then. How come Chuck and Salu don't know about Tom?"

"Linda," Clark sighed, "If this date was about _wanting_ me, then it's not really helping that you're asking about my boyfriend."

"Unless I'm gathering information so I can go over there and kill him." Linda said simply. "Well, it's too early on to kill. I guess I'd just find some information on him that you don't know that would arouse conflicts between you two, and then I'd get you."

Clark blinked. This girl was serious. "Tell me about you. You already know about me."

"What do you want to know, baby?" Linda chirped, grinning.

Clark immediately regretted wanting to know _anything_ about this woman. "Have you done this with all the other guys you've liked?"

"A few. Most of them immediately got me when they saw my boobs, but some needed more … convincing." Linda said laughing. Clark didn't know what was so fucking funny. "But you're a harder nut to crack. I wonder what it takes to make you break."

"Totally not funny." Clark ground out. "Any nicknames?"

Linda thought about this one for a while, and then replied, "Supergirl."

Clark's heart flipped. "Really? Why?"

"I did basketball when I was in middle school. That's just what they put on the back of the jersey." Linda laughed softly: it was prettier than before, "I guess I wanted to be the star player, but I royally sucked. Switched to more creative ways to spend my time."

"Like painting."

Linda smiled. "Like painting."

Clark's cell phone went off. Clark looked at the caller ID and saw that "Brainiac Five" was calling. Clark excused himself to Linda's smug face, and walked out of the restaurant.

"Hey, Brainy, what's up?"

"Lightning just tried to kiss me." Brainy sounded really pissed off. He even had a small growl in his voice. "Had me up against a wall and everything. That bastard. I had to clean myself from him and his stupid scent."

"So you called me."

"Well, yes. I needed to be with my … my partner." Brainy whispered these last words, like he wasn't sure if those were the right words after all. Clark laughed.

There was a brief silence, and then Brainy said, "You're outside."

Clark looked around him for no reason whatsoever. "Uh, yeah. How could you tell?"

"Sound waves scatter more than indoors. I can hear wind. Why are you outside?"

"I couldn't talk in the store, Brainy. Unless you want me to get caught."

Brainy was silent again. "Will Salu Digby get annoyed if you stay out too long?"

"Uh, yeah, probably."

"How's the new girl? Linda Lee Danvers?"

Clark glanced back at the restaurant. "She's annoying as hell. Can't get her off me."

"She's taken a liking to you?"

"Yeah. A little too much. She was in my _apartment_ last night. She saw you!"

"Did you give her a key, or something?"

"No! I don't know how the hell she got in there!"

"You're on a date with her, aren't you?"

Clark froze. Brainy waited a second, and then sighed. "Superman. I'm tempted to use your name right now, just to show you how much this bothers me."

"Brainy, I can explain—"

"That's okay. I won't jump to conclusions like you did with me and Adam." Clark winced. "But what other situation would you be in right now? Going on a _date_ behind my back."

"She forced me to, all right? I didn't _want_ to go, but she was going to tell Salu and Chuck if I didn't!"

"We'll see about that." Brainy scoffed, and then hung up.

Clark glared back at the restaurant. He considered leaving Linda in there, but finally marched inside. He decided he was too nice for his own good.

"You two are cute with the nicknames." Linda said as soon as Clark sat down.

"What?"

"Brainy and Superman." Linda explained. "Think about it: You and I having matching nicknames _definitely_ has to be some kind-of sign."

"How the _hell—_"

Linda jiggled her cell phone in her hand. "Connected it with yours."

Yup. Clark definitely should've left her there.

---------------

Brainy sat on Clark's couch, as usual, but he looked deadly instead of inviting. Clark immediately ran over to apologize, and Brainy jumped up and kissed him. He clutched at Clark's hair and pressed his lips to Clark. Clark felt like his life was taken out of him through his mouth. The kiss was that forceful.

"Brainy, I—"

"Sit down." Brainy demanded, pulling Clark to sit down with him.

Clark sat. Brainy placed his hand on Clark's chest. Clark felt like Brainy was holding his heart.

"What were you doing with Linda Lee Danvers?" Brainy carefully said.

"I was on a date with her because she was going to tell Chuck and Salu if I didn't."

Brainy said nothing. He stared at his hand on Clark's chest. Clark's heart beat uncomfortable fast. What was Brainy doing? Was he listening to Clark's heart?

Clark said, "You're a polygraph."

"I'm feeling your heart for irregular beats, yes." Brainy admitted. His magenta eyes flicked up to meet Clark's. "You're nervous. Why are you nervous?"

Clark traced a finger on the back of Brainy's hand that was on his chest. "I'm not nervous."

A flash of longing passed Brainy's face as he looked at Clark's finger. But he continued the interrogation with a straight face. "Did you kiss her?"

"No."

Brainy paused. "Do you like her?"

"No."

Another pause. "Do you like me?"

"Of course."

Brainy grinned and threw his arms around Clark's neck. Clark wrapped his arms around Brainy's torso and hid his nose in Brainy's neck. Clark could never lose this. He could never lose Brainy.

-------------

BANG! The flat target head wobbled a bit. A fresh hole was straight in the eye.

"I have no idea how you do that, Brainy." Clark said in a deadpan tone. He glared at the target, and weighed his own gun in his hand.

"Practice, experience, aiming, breathing." Brainy said simply. "Your Browning High Power is built differently than my Jericho 941 F, so I wouldn't be able to shoot as well if I had yours."

"Is it worse than yours?"

Brainy pursed his lips. "Not necessarily. I'm just used to this gun. I've had it for a long time."

Clark aimed and took a shot at his own target. It hit the chin. After a few more shots, Clark said, "Oh, yeah, um, Brainy, my phone is tapped."

"Excuse me?"

Clark held up his gun again to the stupid target. "Linda. She tapped it."

Brainy's hand pulled down Clark's raised hand. He stared at Clark carefully. "She heard our conversation earlier today?"

Clark said, "Yeah."

Brainy swore under his breath and turned away slightly. "Did I say anything classified?" Before Clark could confirm or deny this suspicion, Brainy closed his eyes. Clark watched as Brainy's eyes moved rapidly underneath his eyelids. It was like that for a whole minute, and then Brainy's eyes slowly opened.

"No, I didn't say anything." Brainy decided. "Why the _hell_ did she tap your phone? What does she want from you?"

"I don't know—"

"She should get her own fucking boyfriend instead of stealing mine!"

Clark couldn't help breaking a smile. He could practically see the steam coming out of Brainy's ears. Clark asked, "Are you gonna do something—"

"_Yes_, I'm going to do something about her!" Brainy shrieked. "I'm gonna find out who this girl is and tell her to leave you alone!"

"You already know who she is."

"That's true." Brainy paused, frowning.

Clark said, "Brainy, you don't have to do this. It's fine."

"_What's_ fine?"

"I mean, I don't want you to have to reveal yourself because of this girl." Clark elaborated. "I can handle her for a while."

Brainy glared. "Like hell you can."

And as expected, Brainy showed up the next day at work. Well, not "as expected", because Clark still freaked out.

"B-Brainy!" Clark exclaimed. Brainy walked over to the counter and leaned in with his elbows propped up. He was wearing a green shirt—no surprise there—except it was a button-down green shirt left undone over a plain black tee shirt. The hem of his worn-out jeans sprayed over his red Converse. Bands and bracelets slid down his wrist as he grinned at Clark. He looked positively delicious.

"Hello, Clark." Brainy chirped. His magenta eyes darkened. "Where's Linda Lee Danvers?"

"She's somewhere in the store." Clark said, waving a finger in her general direction behind some shelves. "Brainy, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Marking my territory." Brainy simply said. "She needs to know her place in my life, which means absolutely _nothing._"

Chuck walked up to Clark. "Hey, Clark, we got any more Weezer CDs in the back?"

Clark glanced between Chuck and Brainy, but started walking backwards. "Let me go check."

When Clark came back out with the albums, Brainy was gone. Clark explained to Chuck's questioning face, "He's a friend. Just visiting."

"Doesn't seem too intent on visiting _you_." Chuck mumbled. "I think he's gone off to find Linda."

"Well, who can resist a pretty face when they see one?" Clark said laughing.

Chuck nodded and said grimly, "Speaking of which, how'd your date go last night?"

Clark shook his head. "Not my type. Seriously, Bouncy, when I said I didn't want to go on the date, I meant it. You can have her all you want, but you'll have to pry her off me."

"Clark, stop bragging."

"I'm not bragging! I just—"

Brainy and Salu came out from behind shelves. Brainy waltzed through the flappy door thing that separated the cashier from the rest of the store. He kissed Clark quickly, and then left. Clark was left standing silently with Chuck and Salu, all shocked.

"What the hell was that?" Chuck blurted. He looked from Clark to Salu, and blinked. Salu smiled at Clark.

Linda came out from behind the shelves, and growled, "Where'd that bitch go?" She stormed out of the store. Salu called out to her, but Linda didn't come back.

"Are we keeping her?" Chuck asked Salu.

Salu huffed and crossed her arms. "Well, it's a little easier on us if we have her. Do you guys like her?"

"I like her." Chuck immediately said.

Clark frowned. "I don't like her, but, yeah, she's good to have around. Let's keep her."

Salu nodded. They all retreated to their respectable places.

--------------

Clark was surprised and disappointed to see that Brainy wasn't in his apartment when he came home. Clark frowned, because _no one_ was waiting for him. Was work off today?

Clark was pounced on from behind. Clark fell to the floor with an "oof!", and turned around to see Brainy grinning back at him.

"Was I supposed to have caught that?" Clark mumbled, shuffling on the ground.

Brainy laughed, and straddled Clark's waist with his legs. "It would have proved that your have improved, but—" Brainy placed his hands on Clark's chest. "I like this outcome better."

Brainy leaned down and kissed him. Clark gasped into his mouth when Brainy's fingers twisted at Clark's pants button. Brainy kissed down Clark's chin and neck, and then his lips were touching the tip of Clark's cock. Clark shivered as Brainy licked up Clark's dick and then took Clark in his mouth. Clark moaned and writhed in response to every tiny, perfect move Brainy's tongue made, until finally, he released inside Brainy's mouth. Brainy swallowed _everything, _and then wiped Clark's slit clean with his tongue.

Brainy grinned at a spent Clark, and tapped his thigh twice. "Come on, Clark, we must still attend work."

Clark let his head clunk back against the floor. "Do we have to?"

"Yes, now get up." Brainy said. His uncharacteristic playful manner had completely vanished. He stood up and moved to the bathroom.

Clark sighed and got up. On the ride to Headquarters, Clark asked Brainy, "Hey, what exactly did you tell Linda?"

Brainy glanced at him. When he talked, it sounded as if he were reciting lines at a play. "I said, 'you better back off, bitch, or else,' and she said, 'Or else what?' and I showed her my gun."

"You _what?_"

"I put it against her lips, grinned, and then left."

Brainy didn't seem to think he'd done anything wrong. Clark said, "You don't know her! She'll take you to court! You _threatened_ her! She'll do _something_ to get back at you."

"But I showed her my gun."

Clark sighed. "Let's just hope she backs off."

"She will. I put a bug on the taxi in front of her place." Brainy tapped the GPS in his car. A red dot popped up a couple yards behind them. "Oh, shit."

Brainy swerved to the left. The red dot followed them mercilessly. Brainy must have driven to nowhere for ten minutes before he parked in front of some trailers on a dock. He and Clark got out and ran for a bit inside the maze of trailers. Brainy pushed Clark against the wall of a trailer. Clark looked down and found seriousness mixed with mischievousness in Brainy's magenta eyes. Brainy trailed his lips across Clark's jaw. Clark sighed in delight.

"Did you think you could lose me?"

With one swift movement, Brainy took out his gun and pointed it at Linda. Clark sputtered and tugged on Brainy's arm, but Brainy wouldn't move. Utter hatred was on Brainy's face, in his eyes, his teeth, his breath.

Linda smiled grimly. "Getting information on you was harder than my last competition. Querl Dox, nineteen, no brothers or sisters, an _orphan_. Lived in foster care in Ada S. McKinley Community Services for five years before someone picked you up. Janice and Mark Nicholls. Brought you over to England and sped your education up a bit."

Linda took a step in. Brainy's glare remained unfixed. Linda continued, "Oxford. College classes. You didn't have a childhood, any fun or friends—you were always studying. Your parents loved you, yeah, but they shoved more work in your hands. And suddenly, you're being shipped over back to America, and you're in a job you don't want to be in. It must be top secret or the mafia, or _something_, because it didn't come up on my info. No matter how much they need you here, you don't want to do their work-- you don't want to do this job. You just want to be a normal kid."

Linda was standing directly in front of Brainy's gun now. "Having Clark is like having a normal love life. You want him for that. You don't care if you love him or not. The attention you get for him is too much. You like it. And you want to keep it."

"Linda, stop." Clark pleaded.

"Maybe Clark over here's paying more attention than Lyle did." Linda whispered dangerously.

Brainy bared his teeth. His hand shook a little.

"Maybe Clark won't die like Lyle. Maybe he will. Or maybe you're just not meant to have anyone special in your life." Linda spat.

Clark had had enough. He stepped up to Linda, in front of Brainy. "Would you shut up? I don't _care_ about Brainy's history. I don't care that he had a thing with Lyle. What matters is we're together now, and whatever you do won't make us cut it!"

Linda was silent. And then she said, "Doesn't look like you're together."

"What the—" Clark turned around for backup, but Brainy was gone. Disappeared. Clark looked around, ran deeper in the maze of trailers, but could see no trace of Brainy. He heard a car's tires screeching away.

---------

Sorry, you guys, but I can't continue this. I'm too busy. Really sorry. This was fun to write, though, real fun. Thanks to all the reviewers and shit. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted!

love,

shaman3


End file.
